I pray that the God who gives hope will fill you with much joy and peace as you trust in him. Then you will have more and more hope, and it will flow out of you by the power of the Holy Spirit.
A few weeks ago we read about Shalom and how, among many other meanings, it was a greeting of peace to one another. How many times have you greeted someone and asked how they are doing, and their response is “busy”, “crazy”, or “exhausted”. Quite the opposite greeting of Shalom, huh?
What fascinates me is that our culture has so much going on in our life, yet we make time to watch the news, scroll through social media, or veg out in front of the tv. If we were to ask ourselves, what are we hoping to achieve with how we are spending our time, I suspect most of us would say, I don’t know. So why are we so drawn to it? Perhaps we are trying to inform ourselves on current affairs. Maybe we are keeping up with what others are doing. Maybe we are just too tired to put any thought into anything but a mindless reality show.
How we are spending our time is leaving us with bitterness, shame, anger, worry, or frustration. Regardless of how we try to justify our time allocation, we are making a choice in how we spend time in our day and as a result, we are tired and lack joy.
Our lives feel too full, but in reality they are quite empty. We are seeking satisfaction in our life that cannot sustain us. Perhaps we realize that, but we can’t slow down because when we do, we may face reality. So often that result is a broken marriage, a wayward child, or a job that is keeping us from our family.
We don’t need to stay busy, instead we need hope, we need joy, we need peace, we need God.
Yesterday we discussed Paul’s letters to the church. As he concludes his letters, he gives assurance that God is our hope. We do not have to keep tirelessly filling our lives with senseless satisfactions. God sacrificed His only son so we can have the confident assurance He is our joy; He is all we need. He is simply waiting for us to choose Him over the world. When we do, we will have hope in the plans He has for our life and peace in His promises.
