Hope

Over the last couple of weeks I have been thinking quite a bit about heaven and about the results of having a sure hope of our inheritence in heaven. I spent a fair bit of time chatting to my friend Sue on holidays about heaven and how we long to be in heaven where we will have complete rest; no pain, no aggravation, no tiredness, no stress, just peace!! Peace in the presence of our Lord... what a concept!! At about this time I was reading about faith and hope in Calvin too.

The more I though about hope the more my perspective on life changed. One day I said to Sue, "Will there ever be a day when I wont feel tired?" And her simple and profound response was, "Yep, in heaven." How true that is.

I think having a sure hope of heaven give us both a sense of discomfort/lack of contentment and one of complete contentment. This sounds a bit strange I know but bare with me...

Our lack of contentmet comes from the fact that this world isn't our home. We long for heaven with an almost painful yearning. We aren't satisfied with this world because we know that a much better one is on its way. Yet...

Our hope also produces in us a contentment. We become more content with our everyday existence because we stop expecting heaven in this life now. If we don't expect that there will be a day when we aren't tired until we get to heaven, we don't get as disappointed when we wake up each day feeling tired. If we don't expect that people will always be kind and loving towards us, we aren't as disappointed when we are hurt by the people we love. But this isn't a pessimistic outlook. Its not to say we walk around thinking, "No one loves me, everybody hates me, I think I'll eat some worms." No, it just reduces our expectations...

Hope teaches us to trust more in God and his purposes for our lives and to not expect too much from this life. But it also teaches us to eagerly wait for the time when Jesus will return. How liberating!!