Friday 20th March - Today

DAILY BYTE

Yesterday, we affirmed the truth that God’s love and presence can overflow into and redeem even the most difficult of times.

Another excellent example of this would be Viktor Frankl himself. Remember the story told on Wednesday of Frankl’s experiences in a concentration camp? Well, Frankl survived that camp because he placed his hope not in the Allied Forces but in a far higher and truer power. Frankl trusted in divine love to empower him to face those dreadful circumstances. He trusted that even if he woke up tomorrow and his worst fears were confirmed – that he was still facing another day in that concentration camp – that God could somehow make even that day worth living.

Now that’s the kind of hope that is worth living and dying for! Frankl trusted that heaven could overflow even into the hell of a concentration camp. As one writer later noted, Frankl was freer in that camp then even the prison guards.

When we hope in God, our circumstances may not necessarily be changed. Events may not work out exactly as we would like. Sometime we respond angrily or bitterly. Other times we dream so hard and so long of better times to come that we forget to live in the here and now. We daydream so hard of a better future that we trip up on our present realities! Too late we find that we human beings, limited as we are, have capacity to only LIVE in the present, and if we wish it away we lose it forever.

God is able to press meaning and purpose (to redeem) even the most difficult times (as we learn from Frankl). Jesus consistently emphasised that the Kingdom was always alive and present – it was not something that belonged to the past or the future but in the here and now. The Kingdom is among us!

This day is the most important we have, because it is the only reality we are able to fully be alive in. Don’t waste it – most especially by allowing future fears to grip, torment and stifle you, no matter how threatening they may be.

That is a hard truth that both Scripture and life teach us. Tough things do happen to good people. Babylonian armies bash down the gates of almost all of us at one point or the other. However much we try to pretend it isn’t so the mortality rate is still 100%. After all, a cross entered the life of the best of all of us – one who was without sin or blemish. But beyond that – there was resurrection and new life!

And that’s what it comes down to really. For as ‘cheerful’ as this may sound, one day all of us will face our final day. The day on which we breathe our last breath and for us there is no tomorrow. That is of course if we trust in ourselves, or in constantly shifting circumstances.

But if we hope in God, there will always be a tomorrow. Always!
That’s how we become free. That’s how we stay out of self-imposed hells of fear, worry and hopelessness.

Because it really, really matters how we think about tomorrow. If affects how we will act, what we will prioritise, how we feel, who we are and who we are becoming. It dramatically affects our today.

So then, may the God of hope and life and love and rich potential overflow into your life. May you place all your hope in that God, and no one or nothing else, so that like Jeremiah, Frankl and of course Jesus – you may live free!

Hope then … HOPE … because the promise is that every tomorrow, no matter how challenging or painful, will be as full of God as yesterday and today is. For ultimately, hope in God sets us free to live today as fully alive.

PRAY AS YOU GO

God of hope, we pray that you would change how we think about tomorrow. We pray that you would teach us how to healthily deal with our fear and anxieties regarding what may or may not happen. No matter what circumstances we are facing, give us the strength and courage we need to place all of our hope in you. May heaven overflow into our lives in quite staggeringly generous measures and in so doing may our hearts be filled with hope and with peace and with love. Amen.

FOCUS READING

Romans 15 : 13 NIV

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.