I Want to Get Off the Merry-Go-Round! Hope Series #14

My husband is a pretty upbeat guy. But every once in a while, when he feels the crush of projects and deadlines, and hard to please clients, he is tempted to go back to bed, pull the covers over his head, and hide from the world. I can relate! Especially this week.

At the end of June, I went to a four-day writer’s conference and came home ready to get to work. But there was gardening and housework to catch up when I returned, bills to pay, and packing to do for two back-to-back trips. On Friday, I drove six hours north for a dear friend’s wedding, then back Saturday morning to unpack and reload the car for our family vacation, which was another four hours east. Now we’re home; it’s time to do the gardening, housework, and bills all over again! Round and round it goes. And still not much writing getting done.

In times like this, I feel like I’m on a crazy carnival ride, and all I want to do is get off. Some say, “Life is short and then you die,” which is true. And since it is, the Epicureans said we might as well eat, drink, and be merry.

The world encourages us to find happiness through endless pursuits of pleasure, or escape through sex or substances. But those only provide a brief respite, before reality slaps us in the face. That’s why we need God’s perspective on life. After all, He created it.

King David asked God to remind him, “Make me know my end…the measure of my days…how frail I am…how my life is only a blip in time compared to You…a vapor…a shadow” (from Psalm 39). Why would David need God to remind him? Isn’t it obvious our time here is brief?

Yet when we accept the brevity of life, we discover why we’re here in the first place. When we want to hide from the world; when we don’t see any purpose in what we do; we might be tempted to despair. David, on the other hand, wanted to remember his hope was in eternity with God, and therefore make his days count. He recognized our purpose on earth is to know and please God.

When Jesus started to focus more on their internal needs than their external wants, many of His followers stopped following. They wanted a king to rescue them from Rome, to feed them when they were hungry, and to heal all their ailments. But Jesus was the Savior who came to die, and rescue them from the chains of their own sins.

After they left, Jesus asked His twelve disciples, “Do you also want to go away?” Peter’s answer is the one I keep coming back to, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:66-69, emphasis mine). This is the truth that holds us steady. Jesus is our only hope in this crazy world.

Peter’s statement echoes David’s words in Psalm 39:7: “But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you.”

The following song, “My Hope is In You Lord” by Aaron Shust, puts this truth to music.