Where Do You Place Your Hope?

[I have typed up an excerpt from Paul David Tripp's book "Forever" out of the chapter, "Hope Can't Live Without Forever." I hope as I share this, that it will be challenging to you as it was to me when I read it. Also, I highly recommend this particular book. It is one of the most influential/life-changing books that I have ever read...and I read a lot of books!]

If you are God's child, you can have hope in the middle of all the tough things you face, not only because in all of those moments God is with you, but also because the cross of Jesus guarantees you that all that is broken will be made new forever. You can live today knowing that you have a future that is beyond the boundaries of your wildest imagination. If you are God's child, you have hope because God is hope, and you have a hope that will last forever because He has defeated the one thing that will stand between you and forever: death.

Sadly, many of us who by God's grace have been given hope don't live as if we have it. We look for hope where hope can't be found. We place our hope in things that can never deliver. We live hopelessly because we fail to live with forever in view. We live for the next vacation, the next thrilling experience, the next stunning achievement. We put our hope in the hands of flawed and finite people, burdening our relationships with expectations that they can never deliver. We ask inanimate objects to give us reason to get up in the morning, but they never can.

Sure, the things in which we put our hope give us a temporary buzz and a temporary rest, but reality always hits. These things all disappoint us in the end. No matter how wonderful the situations in our life are, no matter how beautiful our possessions are, no matter how exciting our experiences are, no matter how fulfilling our accomplishments are, and no matter how loving the people in our lives are, they will only satisfy us temporarily. They simply cannot carry our hope. How different would your life and mine be if we remembered that everything that exists in the created world is meant to be a finger pointing us to the only place where hope can be found?