Life can be so hard that even just the shadows can crush us if we don’t learn to place our greatest hope in God.
At the beginning of the week, I think about all the matters that press down on me and I’m grateful for God’s Word and the perspective it gives me. God takes the pressures of life and give me His perspective. For example, He used these passages from the Book of Psalms:
Lord, make me to know my end, and what is the measure of my days, that I may know how frail I am.
Indeed, You have made my days as handbreadths, and my age is as nothing before You; certainly every man at his best state is but vapor. Selah.
Surely every man walks about like a shadow; surely they busy themselves in vain; he heaps up riches,
And does not know who will gather them. “And now, Lord, what do I wait for? My hope is in You.” (Psalms 39:4-7)
All of the purely temporal goals we are pressuring ourselves about today are merely an oppressive dark shadow. Our life is frail. We have a deep knowledge that without hope to drive us—we are dead. But, this Psalm reminds us of how to best channel our hope so we can re-adjust what SHOULD be urgent and important today.
All the things (my hopes) I put pressure on myself to do today may be sorted two ways:
- The things someone else will inherit—the “shadows;” and,
- The things that are eternal—things that are NOT a shadow and thus, are “real” and deserve my highest hope!
This life represents a mere blip on the radar screen of time. In fact, we don’t know if our life will last even to the end of today—right? So how much time and energy should we waste on things that are not eternal? Even the temporal things we must do to survive, may be done with our eternal purpose in mind—which makes them far more exciting!
If our greatest hopes and dreams are for the things of this world, we are setting ourselves up for supernatural disappointment!
God has given us so much more!!!
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”
I Peter 1:3-5
