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Hoping is risky business…just ask anyone who’s ever done it. That’s because, in life, we speak of hope getting “dashed,” “crushed,” and even “lost.” In those painful moments, we must decide if we’ll ever hope again, and if so, in what or who.
That was the exact decision one particular AIDS patient faced years ago….
In his uplifting book Keeping Hope Alive for a Tomorrow We Cannot Control, Dr. Lewis Smedes writes about a friend named Tammy Kramer who was the manager at an AIDS outpatient clinic at the massive Los Angeles County Hospital. One morning, her gaze fell upon a young man who’d come in for his regular treatment and dose of medication. She noticed that he looked tired as he sat on the stool awaiting the doctor’s visit.
Eventually, the doctor – a relatively new physician – appeared and began administering the dosage through a needle in the young man’s arm. Without looking up at the patient, the young doctor said, “You’re aware, aren’t you, that you are not long for this world – a year at most?”
Granted, this doctor probably didn’t have the best bedside manner, but it was the truth, nevertheless.
On his way out, the devastated patient stopped at Tammy’s desk. With his face twisted with pain, he hissed, “That S.O.B. took away my hope.”
Without hesitation, Tammy replied, “Maybe it’s time to find another hope.”
So many people haphazardly put their hope in things that are unworthy of it; time after time, they are disappointed when they realize they’ve grasped for the wrong hope. Tammy was suggesting the hope that never disappoints, the hope that Paul wrote about 2,000 years ago:
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. (Romans 5:1-6)
If you don’t have your hope in Jesus Christ, you need to get a different hope.
Resource’s Origin:
Keeping Hope Alive for a Tomorrow We Cannot Control by Lewis Smedes. Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1998, Page 54.
Topics Illustrated Include:
Advice
AIDS
Death
Disappointment
Disease
Doctor
Hope
Hopeless
Hurtful Words
Medical
Pain
Risk
Sick
Trust
Trusting God
(Resource cataloged by David R Smith)
