or you’ll become a dull, burned out person that cannot absorb ideas (more less generate a lot of quality ones) because your brains are mush.
“Happy girls are pretty girls.”
(GRRRRR at this quote.)
Hope for life, specifically.
I’ve been feeling particularly hopeless and depressed for the past couple of days. (Those kinds of days when one feels like drinking away one whole bottle of Asti and doing other activities that brings into literal execution the meaning of… despair.) Despite the other things I need to do (and how i despise the mere thought of these things!) I decided to listen to a Tim Keller podcast.
SO. Why can I have hope now?
I can have hope because I have been born again because of who Jesus is and what He has done for me. This living hope I have in Jesus means that I can be both full of joy and pain, because despite the suffering, hardship, and other cruel things about life happening at the present, at the same time it is always a greater reality that there is the imperishable, undefiled inheritance I have through Jesus, an inheritance that will never fade… and will not be taken away from me despite what a horrible sinner I am and all because of the unconditional love of Christ… because that’s just who He is.
This means I can say farewell to those times when I feel as though every ounce of sweat and toil were meaningless, and that I would rather ruin myself because I feel tired, exhausted, hopeless, and anxious. This means I should keep giving my best in my schoolwork, not because I’m afraid of failing or not graduating on time, but knowing that at these very moments Someone higher than me is managing every detail of my life, and that no matter how much I may “fail” He will never change…. and that I have not failed in what really matters in life.
Since I believe in the reality of God, the Bible, and of Jesus Christ… to “sense the full reality of what’s out there in the universe and act in accordance to it…” would mean me completely fixing my hope on the most logical entity to fix my hope on: Jesus, and acting knowing that this Being is in full control always, that His promises are true, that what he says in the Bible is true, and that I can finally have peace. A person who really believes in these things should not be sour, depressed, or consumed by anxiety because in the greater reality of things, there’s no true way of screwing it up. A person who has accepted these things will be filled with genuine joy, because at the end of the day, what is most important is still intact… thanks to Jesus, the One who always saves.
And one more thing: this means that I, a typically sarcastic, cynical, glaring worrywart, should act in joy. I should rejoice. I hate that word because I don’t naturally act like a cheerful, happy person. But it sensibly follows that when one finds the greatest thing (ever) and knows that he has it (forever), the only instinctive reaction would be acting in happiness and joy. If I truly do realize (and claim) what I have and who I am, I have no excuse for not acting genuinely in joy. :)
