Hope Is A Good thing

Dear Red, If you're reading this, you've gotten out. And if you've come this far, maybe you're willing to come a little further. You remember the name of the town, don't you? I could use a good man to help me get my project on wheels. I'll keep an eye out for you and the chessboard ready. Remember, Red. Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. I will be hoping that this letter finds you, and finds you well. Your friend, Andy.

The idea of hope is not a new one.  In fact, it's not really an idea at all.  It's a promise.  It's a promise from God that despite the brokenness and desperation we all live in, there is optimism and confidence that God is in control and He has a better plan.  This promise is not empty.  He always comes through.  We are never let down.  The problem is that we hold our own plans above God's.  Our grip on the here and now does not let God move and show us the great things He has for us.  And because we're all self serving and not focused on God's promise, we miss out on the confidence He wants to give us.

Andy Dufresne is a fictional character in Stephen King's short story, "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption".  His character is more than just an innocent man who is wrongly imprisoned for something he didn't do.  He lives in hope.  The hope that we all are promised by our generous God, but whom we have turned away from because of our distrust in His goodness.  In the end of the movie, Red has found the place that Andy has mentioned while they were in prison together.  That letter is simple, but it's an invitation.  That invitation is for Red to choose.  There's work to be done in paradise.  Andy's paradise.  And he needs a good man to help him.  What I love about this letter is that even though there is work to be done, Andy is getting the chessboard ready.  That's how God is.  There's work to be done.  That invitation is out there for us to choose to into.  But there is also going to be time to relax, have fun, and spend some good one on one time with God.  And the best thing is that hope is a good thing.  And "no good thing ever dies".  Hope will not die because God cannot die.  And if we can hold on to that confidence, we too, will find ourselves in Zihuatanejo.  No matter how long we've been in prison.  No matter how faraway it seems.  Because hope IS a good thing.  "Maybe the best of things."

Learning from Rose Nadler

For anyone who's seen Lost and has stuck with this show as I have, you quickly realize no matter how confusing and frustrated you are in wanting to find answers, there are hidden layers to this show that, if you watch it like you would "The Bachelor" [i.e. half doing something else], you will miss more than you may want to.  I'm not going to reveal any spoilers here because that's not the purpose of this blog.  But to understand more deeply about myself and my relationship with God, it's funny how the Holy Spirit will take situations as inconsequential as a television show to reveal God's desire for me.

There are so many things tugging at our interests, interests that lead us to stray off of God and onto ourselves.  The Puritan culture that still lives and breathes in the fabric of America runs deep.  We are taught at an early age to work hard, do your part, and all the while, "if you want to do it right, do it yourself".  There's a lot of "doing" in our culture and that puritanical lifestyle seeps into my soul from day one and it's never really allowed me to just stop, drop everything, and follow Jesus.  Clearly, there is nothing wrong with taking responsibility of one's life and do the work that is necessary to do.  But so often, I misinterpret that responsibility as a way of relational fortitude with Jesus.  The words "try", "do", "should", and "more" are constants in my prayer life.  I want to "try" harder.  I want to "do" more.  I "should do more".  But in doing more, I often just focus more on myself.  I focus on whether or not I look good in what I am doing, asking if I am doing the right things, and wondering if I have done enough.  It's really all about me.

The Lost connection is that I am like John Locke.  Depending on the timeline you are watching, John Locke is in a wheel chair.  The disabled Locke imagines and fantasizes about what he can do if he has the use of his legs.  And then one day, he meets Rose Nadler, a supervisor in a temp agency trying to get Locke some work.  He wants her to place him in a construction site because he tells her that's what he's interested in.  She responds with, "I can send you there tomorrow, but the next day, you'll be right back here."  And when Locke starts to lecture her on his circumstance, she responds with her own disability.  She is dying of terminal cancer.  Embarrassed, Locke apologizes for his demeanor, but Rose tells him something that we all need to hear.  She said that she went through a period of denial and it wasn't until she accepted the brutal condition that she began to live and have peace.  She encourages him to do the same, to not dwell and focus on what he can and can't do, but for who he is and who he loves.

There is also a disability in me.  It's not a physical one, but the disability of sin in my life disables me to love and relate deeper with Jesus and others.  It's created a barrier that relegates me to being self centered and self absorbed.  I, too, think about what life would be if I only "did" more of the good things and less of the bad.  I think about how wretched I am in the sight of Jesus.  But watching Rose gently teach Locke about acceptance has given me a new perspective on my own relationship with Jesus.  To not focus so much on what I am doing right/wrong, but to focus on who I am.  Clearly what I do is an extension of who I am, but there is no balance of seeing myself for me in front of God - a broken spirit who is loved in spite of his imperfections.  And to embrace God's grace and to believe that His grace can redeem any sin is difficult to grasp.  But sometimes, the Holy Spirit will use someone like Rose, a fictional character that only speaks to me like she were real.  The realness of the Holy Spirit has been there all along, but I was always too busy to listen. Maybe I have it all backwards.  Maybe I need to think about God's economy first before my own, because only when that happens can I see me for who I really am.  And to see that person is to take a step forward to allow God's redemptive story to play out.  Because now He has space to work in my life because I can no longer "do" anymore than I already have.