I had the privilege of traveling to Ukraine in the 1990’s right after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Our choir was one if the first Christian groups to go in. One if the most stunning things I noticed was the blank stares of hopelessness on everyone’s face. The country was in shambles and it looked like nothing had progressed since the 1940’s. Communism had taken away the people’s desire to work, produce or even hope for anything other than basic existence.
As long as people have hope they can endure just about anything. But when hope is gone, despair sets in and people can lose even the will to live. That’s why it saddens me at some of the popular thinking today that spreads hopelessness to so many lives.
Why keep people down?
Those that struggle with same sex attractions are told they should just accept that as the way God made them and make the best of it. Amazon has even gone so far as to censor books that contain research even suggesting that hope and help is even available.
Why keep people in bondage? The truth is that people can change. I’ve seen it first hand with people I personally know that through Christian counseling have overcome those desires and now are happily married with children.
If a woman becomes pregnant unexpectedly, to the abortion advocate there is no thought that the child might actually be a blessing. It must be destroyed. Yet, even in cases as horrible as rape, we hear testimony after testimony of women who choose life for their child and the joy and the blessing brought into their life by that unplanned child.
The list continues. If you are poor, some say you will always be poor and we have to keep raising the minimum wage because you can never hope for anything other than an entry level job.
If you are on welfare they will tell you there is no hope of you ever being able to get off because you’re just not capable of working so we must keep the government checks coming. People rise from minimum wage jobs every day and get off welfare to become productive citizens. Unless they are truly disabled, those on welfare need for people to believe in them, not tell them they are incapable of providing for themself by sending them money week after week, month after month and year after year.
In the movie Shawshank redemption. Morgan Freeman’s character, Red, is quoted as saying that “Hope is a very dangerous thing,” but the Bible says quite the opposite and that Hope deferred makes the heart sick. (Proverbs 13:12)
We all need hope and a vision for something better when things aren’t going as they should. Some get their pleasure out of keeping people down. I want to be someone that gives people hope by pointing them to the redemptive work of Jesus Christ.
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11
Duking Out Life 