Sweet friends, with all the chaos that’s been happening in the world this week, I haven’t really known what to say. I arrived home from a week-long missions trip to Haiti late Saturday night, and woke up early Monday morning to the news of the Las Vegas shooting. All the pain in the world–in all its various forms–has been a little overwhelming to process. Add the suffering thousands of people are still enduring after the hurricanes, and the shenanigans happening with North Korea, and the ramifications are mind-boggling. And heart wrenching.
All these things don’t even begin to address the personal hardships and heartaches some of you are enduring right now. I know. And I’m so sorry.
It’s enough to make a normal person throw up their hands and believe it’s hopeless. And helpless.
But it’s not. Because HE is not.
Listen to me very carefully. We are not hopeless because we are not helpless. You are not hopeless because you are not helpless. Not if you know Jesus.
In 1 Peter 1:3-4, Peter writes “ In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.”
Did you catch that? God has given us living hope, through Jesus–hope for our living. Right here. Right now. And for all eternity. Do you know the most beautiful thing about Peter’s words? They were written to a group of people undergoing severe trials. This wasn’t some pie-in-the-sky, positive thinking mumbo-jumbo for people with perfect, trouble-free lives.
This was a lifeline of hope for people needing help. Just like us.
Maybe that’s why 1 Peter is my favorite book in the Bible. In fact, I love it so much I wrote a Bible study on 1 Peter last fall. It’s only five short chapters, but man, is it filled with good stuff. Stuff like perspective when faced with trials. Or wisdom about how to act in the midst of a trial. And the promise of God to be with us in it, and through it, and after it.
All this to say: Go read 1 Peter.
Your welcome (I already know you’ll love it).
In the meantime, when you are tempted to throw up your hands in despair, repeat after me: “I am not hopeless, because I am not helpless. Jesus is by my side”.
Did you say it out loud? Good. Now say it again.
