A Hope & A Future

There was a Wendy’s commercial somewhere back around 1970. In that commercial, this little old lady goes into one of the competitors hamburger joints and gets a hamburger. When they give it to her, it has two big buns and a little tiny piece of hamburger. She looks at the man and with a very nasty look on her face, she says, “Where’s the beef?” That line caught on quickly and everyone in America started saying that about everything.

But the trouble is that story is very true. It seems the world promises us much, but when we go to get it, it delivers very little.

There was another such line in the movie “Forrest Gump.” In that movie, Tom Hanks, who played Forrest Gump, was sitting on a park bench sharing chocolates with another person and in a deep philosophical moment, he said, “Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re going to get.”

No matter who you are, or what age you are, you can look back over your life and see that he was telling the truth. Life is not all sweet and good, is it? Your life can be changed from one moment to the next, and that change can throw your whole world upside down and turn it inside out.

It seems that any time the wind starts blowing; it blows in some kind of a storm for us to go through. It might be an unexpected shower, like overhearing someone make a hurtful remark about you, or it might be a full-fledged tornado, demolishing your entire life for a season; like the loss of a loved one or the doctors telling you to get closer to your God because they have know idea what is wrong with you or how to treat you.

We all have storms in our lives. Have you ever seen a campfire? When those logs starts burning, the sparks start flying, don’t they? And, where do they fly? They never go in any other direction than up.

In JOB 5:7, we are told that man will have troubles just as surely as sparks fly upward. That is a pretty good indication that we are always going to have storms that come into our lives. What are we supposed to do when we have storms?

In JAMES 1:2, we are told to consider it a joy that we do have storms. Have you ever though why on earth would we be told that? The reason is very clear.

We are to rely upon God for everything, at all times. To do this, we need to have faith that is strong. And, just like muscles, faith will never grow strong unless you use it. And, the one place we are able to put it to use more often is in our storms. So, we do not feel joy because we have another storm in our lives, but because it gives us another chance to develop our faith to make it stronger.

We have all known people that say one thing and then do another. Their words simply do not match their actions. How do we feel abut these people? Don’t we tend to wonder if everything they say is a lie, too? Don’t we start questioning everything they do once we find out they don’t tell the truth?

Now, think for a minute about how others might see you. As a Christian, you are looked at by just about everybody around you. They put you under a microscope and judge everything you do, just to see if they can see you slipping.

During our storms, it is particularly important that we act, talk, and think like a Godly person. It is our actions in storms that paint a vivid picture to others about what is really in our hearts. So, let us be very mindful that we do not do or say anything that would allow others to call us hypocrites.

There is the story of a wise and kind king who had one narrow road leading into his city. He wanted to see if anyone in his kingdom was as kind as he was, so he had his men put a rather large and heavy stone in the middle of that road to block it. Then, he hid in the bushes so he could see people’s reactions to this unexpected roadblock

All day long people passed back and forth but nobody bothered to move it. They would just go around it, all the while cursing the king for allowing that stone to be there. Finally, late in the day, an old and poor farmer came by. He was on his way to the market place to sell a few vegetables.

When he got to the stone, he laid down his load and began to move it. It took all his strength, and a good amount of time, but he finally got it moved to the side of the road so others could go through unobstructed