Where is your hope?

Where is your hope? In who or what do you place your hope?

In you Lord, and in Heaven. You know this, Father.

Where else?

I don’t know, Lord.

You have hope in your bank account, savings and retirement. You have hope in your knowledge and skills. You have hope in your intellect, you ability to figure out anything that comes your way. You have hope in the peace and comfort of your home. You have hope in your stuff. You have hope in your ability to persuade, to influence and get your way. You have hope in your wife, your children, your friends, your clients, your relationships, your athletic ability…I could go on. My son, you have come far but you still have hope all over the place in addition to your hope in Me and the promise of Heaven. Needless to say, this creates some problems. You are not unlike my people Israel and their sin that led to exile: it is not that they stopped worshipping me, but that in addition to worshipping me they also started worshipping other gods. In the same way, you issue is not that you don’t place your hope in me…it is that you don’t place all of your hope in me. Hope is a form of worship. Thus, there is a measure of worship, idolatry, in placing hope in parts of my creation rather than 100% in the Creator. Crudely put, it is little different than deciding to hope in or worship the sun or the moon or a golden calf – it is the transfer of hope and devotion from Creator to creation. Enjoy and love and care for creation; place hope in (and thus worship) only me. Then your soul will have balance and peace as you live out my design. This is the Lord.