hopin'

There's something about newness. Even if it's just the hope of something new...it's attractive to me. If I can go to a store and buy something that will help me to be more organized, I just feel better. I have a lot of things that, in theory, would help me to be more organized...most of them in boxes in my basement. I hate clutter and I live in clutter. You can barely see the hypocrisy in which I live, through the maze of unopened boxes from the move and garage sale bargains.

I love the idea of the new thing. I love that it'll help me be more organized. I love the hope that it brings. Unfortunately, stuff happens. File cabinets don't get filled. Stackable shelves that will allow for a greater level of organization don't get installed. Life happens...hope fades. Informercials get me excited - "I can clean my gutters, lose my gut, make more money, make more friends, cut and dice vegetables, and have no stick pots and pans!" I never order things off of informercials though....I hate paying for shipping. I also wonder if the things will work, will last, will be a rip off.

At our church last week they had a group of folks on stage holding up signs that read things like, "I was living in depression" or "I smoke 3 packs a day" and then they flipped the signs over to say things like, "Now I have hope and a new life!" or "Now I smoke 2 1/2 packs - unfiltered!" or something like that...I wasn't taking notes.

It was fun to see some folks who had made some life progress. You could see how excited they were. It was nice. Sometimes, for me, the accumulation of unused products, false starts, empty results or dead ends...just gets to me. I've tried something...and it doesn't end up working. I get a little more callous...a little harder inside.

I think that's one of the reasons that people don't get so excited about the possibility of following Jesus. "Been there, done that" "I've tried religion...doesn't work" I remember hearing that Jesus doesn't wipe the slate clean, he actually destroys the slate altogether...no more slate - and luckily I wasn't that callous at the time. I'm glad I looked into Him a little more.

I know that for the most part His followers are a pretty bad representation of Him. I don't blame people for not getting excited about the faith of all these screwballs. I know that different Christians have different degrees of joy, hope, peace, impatience, anger, jealousy, love, unforgiveness.... We let politics, our views, situations and selfish motives get in the way of pointing to Him.

Please don't blame the messengers - compared to us, Newman was an incredible mailman. He sometimes delivered the goods.

We are not a mirror image - we're barely even a faint whisper of His Glory (whatever that means) If you saw me playing basketball with Griff in our driveway, I just hope you wouldn't point to me and say, "He represents Michael Jordan and all of the basketball playing world" That would be a sad, sad day. (cue the crying clowns)

There's something about hope....beats the crap out of hopelessness....or worse yet, callous indifference.