(For those of you who weren’t even a gleam in your parents’
eyes back then—watch Butch Cassidy and
the Sundance Kid, and see if those two bank robbers don’t have you swooning
and sighing even as they meet their well-deserved demise.)
Now these days I
don’t at all care for Redford or his politics, but in my dream I was delighted
to be “special,” “recognized,” “chosen” to be his girl.
Later
I moved into another dream where another man, I think he was an editor who
resembled—go figure!—Donald Sutherland, liked my work. Recognized its worth.
These
two dreams, back to back with the same theme, gave me a good feeling. An
important person saw something in me that others missed. I woke with an inner
rearrangement of expectation and energy.
That’s what HOPE is—a “pleasurable and confident
expectation.” It’s what Emily Dickinson calls “a thing with feathers that
perches in the soul/ And sings the tune without the words/ And never stops at
all.” She’s not writing about the
finger-crossing wish that things would change, but about an expectation so sure
that its song carries even in the “Gale.”
That kind of hope is certainly not dependent upon the
fickle, fragile things of man. The hope that conveys a pleasurable confidence and expectation can only be anchored in
Someone who has the power and possibility to fulfill a promise. It is so
confident in this person that it holds even when trouble seems to go on
Forever.
It’s the hope I fear our world is quickly losing. A law
enforcement officer told me that the most common cause of calls he responded to
on New Year’s Eve was suicide threats. Really? Not weaving the wrong way on a
one-way street? Not serenading your neighbors with a sloppy song at 3 a.m.? But
stabbing yourself? Shooting yourself? Not seeing any reason to be?
Hopelessness and despair are running rampant. It makes me
mad, this deception of death that’s cloaking our culture. I know there is a God
of Hope whose words have power. But I also don’t want to be like a noisy gong
in the early morning by scattering words of scripture around when someone isn’t
ready to receive them. (I wonder if they’re not received sometimes because they
are not so evidenced in my own life—that was a sudden personal musing, do with
it as you may.)
So this for today: May those of us who know the Lord, grow
in the Delight of Him. He’s not just
a memorized verse that we’ve pledged to think about or distant director who
never smiles. I don’t know if Olympic runner Eric Liddell actually said the
words the movie script credits him, but they’re good words to think about. He
said, “When I run I feel his pleasure.”
To feel God’s pleasure.
May those of us who know the God of Hope press in to know
his pleasure so much that it radiates from us and shines into the lives of
those we encounter who have lost it, or never found it to begin with. May we
pick up the battle of prayer because regardless of the lies and deception that
are settling so softly over us—God’s word is true and powerful and we are the
bearers of his hope.
And whether the Holy Spirit inspires you in the form of
someone like Chris Hemsworth or Donald Sutherland, (speaking to women here!) I
pray your dreams be sweet and you awake in hope!
In the joy of the Lord,
Marcia
This is beautiful. Powerful. Anchored in gently spoken truth and full of . . . hope. Love the quote from Eric Liddell; it's one of my longtime favorites. Thank you for the reminder that's so well said. May you continue to have dreams that morph into musing that bless all of us!
ReplyDeleteSuch truth here, Marcia. My life verse is Roman 15:13,
ReplyDelete"May the God of all hope fill you with joy and peace AS YOU TRUST HIM..."
I need the reminder that trust comes first, and then joy and peace follow.
I don't, however, need to dream about Donald Southerland. He gives me the creeps.
You're too funny Susan! Pleasant dreams.
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