Hope In The Distorted…
When tragedy strikes, we often ask questions trying to make sense of what seems an unfair and irrational situation and generally find ourselves asking “why” as the foremost question.
We have all experienced something in life that went wrong, takes a turn or the unexpected happens. Over the last couple of years, as a society, we have witnessed these occurrences as a constant regularity like friends and family members losing jobs after being in the same role for what feels like a lifetime.
We are witnessing many things that no one hoped to ever see. The truth however is that a lot of what is happening has happened in the past. History has a way of repeating itself! Live long enough and you will relive history again! It may not happen to play out exactly the same way or follow in the same pattern, but history lives within revolutions.
What the future holds for all of us can look uncertain and we may feel that now more than we have ever before. But, we live in an uncertain world. So where do we find certainty? Where can we find hope for our future and our children’s future?
The truth, the whole truth, is there is only one true hope. It is not in mankind. It is in our creator. No matter what you think about God, whether you believe in a deity or not – God is real! He is often at times absent from our lives not by His wishes, but rather by our choosing (whether we realise it or not).
Regardless of the origins from this Covid pandemic, it is in existence because we as humans messed around with the unnatural. It’s the orchestration of self that suppresses the need of others. We have
become a people who desire more of the material. I appologise in advance if your surname is Jones, however the need to have a “keeping up with the Jones’” mentality has created a separation between need and want. Don’t get me wrong, I know not everyone lives like this but this mindset is becoming more universal.
There is one whose need to walk with you has never changed along with His desire for each one of us to know Him. Now before you stop reading please understand that it’s often our expression and understanding of the relationship with God that is the centre of the problem. We as humans have tried to understand God and create rules or laws to better understand Him as our creator. But, instead of that giving us a greater understanding of God, it has in fact created an oppression on people that they feel they are unable to live up to.
It is our humanity that turns people from God. Man created religion, God created relationship.
Shame and condemnation come with religion which was never the intent of God. So what does that mean for humanity? Societies problem with God is the very people who promote God. Society blames God but in truth it comes down to our ignorance about Him. The truth to all this is that we as humans in our knowledge are trying to comprehend God. A God who is indescribable; a God who is more powerful, more gentle, more loving, more graceful and more merciful then we can ever comprehend. However, in order to understand Him we created religion.
But there is a hope in all of the chaos that is humanity, in all of the depression of our inadequate nature, there is a God who is real, a God that loves, who sees beyond our faults and looks beyond our wrong doings; a God who understands that we are unable to live up to rules and because of that sent His son to be the ultimate sacrifice and take all of our wrong doings and die just for us. Why? So we could reconnect and can walk and get to know and love a God, our creator, who extends forgiveness to all even when we get it wrong (thank goodness for that!).
The invitation to know hope, to know a God who loves, a God who
wants to walk with you, is extended to all, none are exempt, no one
is disqualified. The only thing you have to do is invite Him into your
life, invite Him to walk and do life with you. He is our hope in all and every situation. He is mankind’s only hope in this distorted world. There are two things you cannot see: fear and faith … What do you choose?
By Peter Hartley
(Senior Pastor, Dunamis Church)
