Hope & Stay

Often in life, circumstances beyond our control, can cause us to feel unhinged, ungrounded and grasping for hope.  In the midst of a struggling relationship, financial insecurity or health issues the ability to see a brighter future that is rooted in a secure present is a life skill that is essential for simple survival.

With that being true, the question often becomes how do you find that sense of security and hope for a brighter future. In life we work so hard to create security, we struggle to establish through great effort a sense of hope for tomorrow, we embrace those around us, clinging to them as if they are the anchors that hold us in place and the reality is when we put our hope in temporal things eventually we WILL be confronted with their temporary nature. We build financial security, working hard, investing smart and then circumstances beyond our control wipes it out. We create the illusion of strength through our eating habits and exercise every morning looking in the mirror and rejoicing in the health we are building to have it all shattered by one doctors appointment. We put our trust, investing all we have in our husband or our wife and in one honest confession of infidelity and it’s gone. Building a foundation on the temporary only produces temporary security.

It’s because of this truth that I have often found great wisdom and direction in the writings of the Apostle Peter as he wrote to the scattered Christians throughout the the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia in the book of 1 Peter. The church at that time was gripped in great upheaval. They were suffering under great persecution, being scattered, facing imprisonment, torture and even death and in the midst of it Peter directed them to have their hearts and minds set on the eternal.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you,  who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.  1 Peter 1

I am looking forward to investigating his eternal truths as we examine 1 Peter during our upcoming series “Hope and Stay”.