I watch people walk down the street with no smile and no happy glimmer in their eyes. People come to see me at my work and tell tales of busy lives that are never quite full enough. Sometime missing and there is a definite drudgery that they seem to be stuck in.
This nonhope is something that I do not really understand because I have always known the promise of life that Christ gives his followers. The bigness and the faithfulness of the Father who loves us more than we can know is echoed through the history books. The gift of his one and only begotten son so that we can be brought before him blameless and in confidence is written in his good book and proclaim on the streets by his broken vessel followers. It is written in the stars and in the intricacies that are found in creation. The lives that are lived for his glory are unquestionable in the evidence of the Father's fingerprint pressed lovingly on them. But all that people can see are the tears spent in the time before the plan for his glory has come to completion.
That is why it is so key to be looking to the hope of the glory of God. Without our big God there is no hope and the world is just full of things trying ever so hard to fill his place. Health and nutrition, entertainment and even people are not going to fill that God shaped whole in each person's heart. They attempt to be involved in things and poor there whole beings into things, only to come out the other end with only nice words and no greater enlightenment as to what life is really meant for.
My goal is not live an empty life in search of something more. My goal is to live a life searching after our abundant life God and to do my best to bring glory to him in all I say and do.
I can say these things. But the actual application of this has proven rather difficult. After failure and apparent amnesia, I know that it is only by the gift of his strength given only after it is asked for, that we are able to do any good. It is all for him and all for his glory. We are but a vapor, but we are loved. How can we even fathom this? We toss things that are temporary without even a thought. But God wants us to be with him and him with us, even though we are a broken, undeserving people. This is surely amazing grace. And the only way that we will truly be able to walk down the street and have the joy of our Lord beam from our faces and be in our limbs if we live as slaves, free from our deadly sins, for Him.