Where do you look for your hope? When the trials of life come, the storms of doubt and fear consume your mind, or the sorrows and weight of the world overwhelm your heart, where do you turn? To what do you look? Where do you set your hope?
When we wander through the deserts and valleys of life, we can feel hopeless. Our minds can be tossed back and forth by the worries of circumstances that are out of our control. If you’re anything like me, you can struggle and strive to work out things according to your own understanding. Sometimes manipulating, sometimes wrestling, sometimes crushed by the helplessness you feel in the midst of it all.
Where Our Hope Lies
We long for sure footing and a mind that is at rest. But how do we get there? The answer is as easy as a single decision and as difficult as a shift in the eternal realm. Here it is. We must decide where our hope lies.
That’s obvious, you may say. Easy and simple, you may say. It is. But, oh, how truly it isn’t. You see, our souls are set on rebellion. The psalmist tells us, “everyone rejects God; they are all morally corrupt. None of them does what is right, not even one” (14:3). Apart from the grace of God through Jesus Christ, we are left without hope and slaves to sin.
It is into this chaos Jesus Christ came. He left heaven to meet us in our weakness, to join us in the storm. He is not a God that is far off, leaving us to writhe and suffer alone. No, He came personally and intentionally to shed His holy blood for our sake. He came to us finite beings to reconcile us to Himself, an infinite God.
There’s no way we can fully grasp this reality. Though we cannot know Jesus fully, we can know Him truly. God revealed exactly what we need to know through His Word. The opportunity for us now is to marvel at and meditate on the depths of the riches of who Christ is.
It can be easy to read the words and believe them to be true. But do we really understand what it means? Do we really fathom the supremacy of Christ? ALL THINGS were created in Him. ALL THINGS were created by Him. ALL THINGS were created for Him. ALL THINGS are held together in Him. Read that again, and let it soak in.
Hope in Christ Alone
Life is built on the relationships and situations we encounter everyday. Because of this, our focus is most often directed by how these relationships and situations are going. Things like a cancer diagnosis, a difficult marriage, a wayward child, a cruel friend, or a lost family member can easily impact us. How can they not? But the question for believers who are in Christ is if we let them steer us? Is the rudder of our life the temporal things or the Lord Jesus who holds all things?
We must remember that Jesus Christ is the cornerstone of ALL creation. No matter the circumstances we find ourselves in, nothing is outside His sovereign knowledge and control.
The words of Paul here in Colossians 1 reminds us that our God is so much greater than anything we experience here on earth. Our time here is but a moment. For those who are in Christ, we can look forward to the hope of eternity.
So let’s look to Jesus, remaining in the faith, established and firm. Let’s not shift back and forth by the waves of circumstances and fear but place our hope in Christ alone. There is no ground more stable, not hope more sure…He alone is trustworthy from everlasting to everlasting.
