Defining Good in a Broken World - Denise Pass
Scripture of the Day:
1 John 5:4
“Because everyone who has been fathered by God conquers the world. This is the conquering power that has conquered the world: our faith.”
Hope Discovery of the Day:
The hope we have in Christ helps us to overcome the temporary problems we face.
Children are orphaned and homeless. Sin is abounding. Crime is rampant and people are dying without hope. How can life be good? Where is the hope in that?
Glad you asked.
The eternal optimist says it’s all good when it sure does not seem like it. You know the kind I am talking about – they see the glass half full while everyone around them sees it half empty.
Ok, I guess that defines me, but I didn’t see the glass as half full before Christ revealed hope reinvented to me.
Defining anything as good is not possible unless the origin is God Himself. Only God is good. And He created life . . . and He said it was good.
I understand it is not that simple to us because we feel the emotional and physical pain that life brings and we do not define that as good. Christ did not define problems as good, either, but He said He would have them and that He had already overcome the world.
We can admit that things that happen in this fallen world are not good. I don’t care how optimistic someone is, evil is never called good in God’s economy. But the overriding principle from God is that life is still good even when things in this life are not.
So, how does that help us when our world around us is imploding? When we can’t pay rent and loved ones are suffering? Simply saying, “well life is good” does not convince our souls.
No, but when we look at our fellow sufferers in Christ who have gone before us, we discover that they, too, struggled in the flesh. But their struggle did not end there. Even when the hope they longed for was not fulfilled, they recognized their experience with “bad” in this world was temporary, but their hope was eternal.
The afflictions of this life can cause us to pessimistically complain and doubt God’s goodness or they can cause us to run to the only One Who is good and find hope in Him once again. The hope we have in Christ helps us to overcome the temporary problems we face. His hope is eternal and not dependent upon or defined by anything this world offers.
Lord, give us further insight into this hope You have and help us to resist the temptation to give in to the hope stealers in our lives.
