Dear Faith Family,
I'm a chips and salsa guy, no matter the chip type or flavor, and I only have slight limitations on the salsa (Pico is not salsa!). Set before me whatever bag and bowl combo you want, and I'll be in until the end! Apparently, the draw is hereditary, passed down from father to son and now to daughter. Admittedly, Lily has yet to find an affection for salsa, but that girl can dominate a bag of chips!
My love for this particular savory goodness is probably not rare nor harmful, and it can be responsibly satisfied around tables at Mariano's or our house on taco night. The problem I've discovered, especially as I've gotten older and my metabolism has slowed(!), is giving in to that anticipated satisfaction after everyone's gone to bed and doing so night after night until the bag and bottle are emptied. You wouldn't want anything to go to waste, right!
"giving in to" inclinations, even surely satisfiable hankerings, as my waistline can attest, usually is not a good thing! We can all attest that whether we are "giving in to" cravings or fears, the pressure of internal or external expectations, the circumstances, attempts at control, despair, daydreams, urges, appetites, and the like, usually giving in does not lead to our flourishing. Usually.
There is one disposition our scripture encourages us to give in to: HOPE.
...in hope that the creation itself will be set
free from its bondage to corruption [what decays]
and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God
...For in this hope we were saved.
(Romans 8:21,24)
This post-Easter life, which we've been meditating on these last six weeks, is a life lived in "this" revolutionizing and transforming "hope," for Easter morning brought salvation. Sin and death were judged, overcome, and defeated because Jesus died. Life forever, life with God, whole and holy, bright and beautiful, is breaking forth into every crevice and corner of despair and darkness because Jesus lives.
As we said Sunday, working through hope, making a life through hope, means going about our daily relations, interactions, and responsibilities, giving in to the freedom and contentment of being bound only by God's love for us. We can give of ourselves wholeheartedly, "working from our souls," because we've been freed from the entanglements of fear, control, lust, and freed to give in to hope.
...all who did receive him, who believed in his name,
he gave the right to become children of God...
(John 1:12)
Now imagine if we gave in to hope as easily as I give in to my inherited craving! Imagine what kind of life we could make, no matter the labors requiring our enduring energies. Imagine and consider with one another:
In what ways are you working in "bondage to corruption"…giving in to fear, despair, fantasy, control, success, affirmation, or anxiousness?
What would look different at/in your work if you give in to the hope for which you were saved in your interactions and efforts?
How can we encourage you to give in to hope—the draw of freedom in Jesus—this week?
May the God of hope [the source of the energy that revolutionizes and transforms today as it draws you into tomorrow] fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that your believing lives [your life of faith], filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit, will brim over with hope! (Romans 15:13)
Love you, faith family! God bless.