"Clear the Stage"
“WHAT ARE YOU SO AFRAID OF!?!?”
“I am afraid to……hope”
This conversation struck me as I was watching the movie “Dying Young” featuring Julia Robert’s character as a hired nurse who falls in love with her patient who suffers through an aggressive treatment of chemotherapy. This man seeks to have a real life and tricks Julia to go on vacation with him, when she finds out that in fact he has not finished his chemotherapy and is actually very sick. When he is faced with the decision to go back home and in turn not put her through the struggle of watching him die without fighting, he expresses his fear in placing his hope in getting well and then it not coming true.
Very dramatic scene. Very real situation. Very wrong focus.
(*disclaimer – am not promoting this movie, quotes from memory)
What was his hope in? His hope was in fulfilling what he thought should be a normal life, his hope was in seeking his own pleasure. Isn’t this so true in our lives though? We set our hopes on so many things other then what God calls us to; loosing those extra 5 lbs, happy family and many friends, a boyfriend or girlfriend we will marry, a car, a house, a job, a dog, and enough money to take care of all of that.
We also have hopes in areas that are real, hopes that take away those hard feelings; cure for that daughter with cancer, relief from the pain of a veering son, pain free life, safety for a grandson at war, etc, etc, etc.
Hopes are everywhere in our lives. The Bible says in Proverbs 13:12: “A hope deferred makes the heart sick”
We all know that feeling when what we were longing for; that job, that healing, that goal, that dream, does not actually come to fruition. It is like someone took the very wall you were clinging to out from underneath you and you land headfirst onto a cement wall. At least that’s what it feels like to me. You place your whole focus and plans on that hope and then it just doesn’t go your way! I used to be such a mess when an experience like that happened.
That is until………
Until the Lord brought me through experiences to make me realize it is not about my earthly hopes. It is about a greater hope! 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 is my favorite verse to read when life does not go the way I planned it. We can live with a greater hope – when we know that Jesus died for our sins and rose again we know that we will be taken up with the Lord FOREVER!! We will be in Heaven forever praising God and living a perfect life!
AWESOME! That sure makes all other hopes pale in comparison to this future glory! It has been a very long process for me to reach this understanding; God has been very patient with my stubborn heart! It took losing a boyfriend, not finding a job, losing control of all of my plans, life change to Africa, Maleria, deaths, adoptions…..oh the list goes on! I know that I am a work in progress but I am so thankful for this lesson He has been teaching me!
I just love seeing how God works – Jimmy Needham’s newest cd (my all time favorite artist) is all about this very fact. One of my favorite songs on the cd is called “Clear the Stage”. In life we allow other things to fill our minds, love, heart, and thoughts. But, the Bible is very clear in telling us that anything that takes the place of GOD is an idol. Even if these are very good areas of life – the desire for a sick person to be healed, the relief from pain, the wish for a job, etc. If anything fills our mind’s spaces and takes up God’s space on that “stage”, that is an idol in our lives.
Jeremiah 2:13 reminds us of what we can do on this earth – to keep God on our stage – and to live in that future hope. “My people have committed two sins; they have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” God is burdened by His people who are forgetting their Father who is real, fresh, never-ending water and seeking their own pleasure, their own plan in dirty, toilet water.
How many times have I cried because I lost something? How many tears did I cry when I broke up with my boyfriend? What was my response when I couldn’t understand why I could not find a job? Oh TOO Many! How often do I cry because I have not placed God at center stage? Eh…..hard to answer that one after answering the previous one!
I am making a statement in the public right now! I vow to keep God as my hope. When things do not go my way or when I see the unfairness in life, I will choose to remember that in this life I will experience the sin of this world. BUT, this life is fleeting and I will soon enter into a beautiful eternity with my Heavenly Father! Revolutionary! Hold me to this!
When I don’t feel like I can run that race, I will turn to Isaiah 40:28-31. When I feel like I am falling down to that cement ground, face-first I will cling to HIS strength and the hope He has given to me!
I pray this can work for you all!




