I like the comic Pearls. I appreciate the humor, although it is edgy. I must confess, I associate more with Rat than I do with Goat.
The other day there was one where Rat is drinking at their favorite hangout and Goat asks why he drinks so much (Rat likes beer- I can’t stand beer. I just don’t trust something that looks the same going in as it does coming out) and Rat answers that he isn’t sure about life or God and you never know until it’s too late (or something to that effect- I left the strip at home this week and I am in Tampa at a training class.) When Goat, who is the more logical and elitist of the characters, hears what Rat says, the next panel has Goat also drinking and saying, “We should do this more often.”
It’s funny, but it is also sadly true of so many of us. Not the drinking part so much as the hopelessness that many people feel. Especially those that refuse to accept God’s existence as real, and also for those that refuse to make a decision about God.
When I say they refuse to make a decision, that is exactly what I mean- they hem and haw, think He probably does exist, or (as I heard yesterday) they believe in Him but not in the religious teachings they grew up with so they just make up their own religion. They believe in God and Yeshua as their Messiah, but it stops there. The laws, regulations and way God says they should live are left to be thrown away with the religious teachings. This is sad and I have seen it more than once, haven’t you? People get fed up with the religious traditions and teachings so ignore all the rules and laws God gave us, lumping them all together with “religion” so that they are, in essence, throwing the baby out with the bathwater. {Isn’t that a great, old expression?}
God is the only real hope any of us have, and refusing to accept Him means that you are hopeless. Not so much you, the person, but your existence as a person has no hope. Oh, sure…there is luck, there is chance, and there is (this is really the case) God taking care of you even when you reject His very existence because He is, well, He is God, and that’s how He rolls. He loves you whether you love Him back or not, and He will take care of you, even if you are a sinner. Remember we are told that Yeshua died for us even though we were sinners. He didn’t wait until we “earned” His sacrifice, He died because we could never earn His sacrifice. I have heard it said that “mainstream” Judaism has explained, as one of the reasons the Messiah hasn’t come, that we are too sinful to be worthy of the Messiah. How could such intelligent and learned people miss by so far the purpose of their own Messiah? Nu- if we were worthy of being brought into the very presence of the Lord, we wouldn’t need a Messiah! DUH!!
Back to the hopeless…all I can feel is sadness and pity on those that reject God, and his laws. His laws are what make life good, they lead us in ways that will bring us closer to God and to each other, and they are so simple and functional. They are, as is God, perfect. If we just hold on to them and follow them we will have a wonderful society, we will care for each other, and every Miss America since the 1950’s will finally get their wish- we will have peace on Earth.
If you know someone who is hopeless (maybe it’s you?) please introduce them to the founder and provider of hope- God. And tell them of the hope we get from Him that came to us in human form, Yeshua the Messiah. Hope is, in and of itself, ethereal and intangible. Yeshua is the hope of the world, and He was very tangible; He was real flesh and blood. He was, and is, a physical representation of the hope we have in God. Accepting Him as your Messiah is receiving hope, which gives you the power to continue in any situation.
Shaul said when he is weak, that is when he is strong because, as Yeshua said, with God all things are possible. That is what hope is- the belief that something is possible. When we have our hope in God, then anything, and everything, is possible. If the only source we have is in chance, or luck, well…in reality, we have no hope. Hope needs something more than randomness to be of any value- it needs to be based in something. A buoy in the water is a marker that identifies where it is safe to go, and it gives the ship’s pilot the hope of reaching the shore safely. If that buoy isn’t anchored on rock or solidly in the ocean bed, it can’t offer any hope because it is not stable.
God is totally stable- He was, He is, and He always shall be, never changing and eternally powerful and trustworthy. That’s the kind of buoy I want to navigate by. That’s the kind of hope my decision has given me- hope that is always, always, always there for me.
Is that the kind of hope you have? If so, shout out, “Hallelujah!!” If not, please consider taking stock of your life, making a decision to decide, and join the club.
God has been waiting for you and has a healthy, heaping helping of hope, just for you.
