Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Empty But Full

I have been experimenting, trying to replace temporal hope with eternal hope. So far it has proved a dismal failure. Eternal hope is like poured concrete which provides a good foundation, but one does not furnish his home with concrete.

We are temporal beings who need some kind of temporal goals and dreams in order to muster strength for the day-in, day-out. So what do we do when there is no short-term desire and aim?

After bouts of exhausting grief and crying jags that leave my eyes parched, I am beginning to realize and experience God as my present-tense strength, hope and joy.

He is my strength to love his people and serve them.
He is my hope. I have him. I don’t need him to do more or be more than he already is.
He is my joy, where every other can seem as though it has been stripped away. I have Christ and rejoice in him and so have joy that enables me to enjoy those he has given me.

Habakkuk 3:17 Though the fig-tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, 18 yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Saviour. 19 The Sovereign LORD is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights.

1 comment:

RW said...

That is one of my favorite Scripture passages! That to me also is in the song "blessed be the name of the
Lord"...on the road marked with suffering/when I'm found in the desert place/when the darkness closes in...still I will say...