Up to Bat

 "Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord." Ps. 31:24

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life."  Prov. 13:12

I watched the Franklin Graham 2020 Prayer March last Saturday. Boy, did I need that. Prayer. But more importantly, hope. It's amazing how prayer reorients you. All the negative news. All the negative speech. All the negative attitudes. All, I confess part of my life at present. It disparages. It overwhelms the good and pushes aside the positive. It's hard being positive all the time. And sometimes...just down right impossible. But hope is a very powerful antidote.

For some reason, I have been reading a lot of WWI and WWII era writings. I finished Ian Murray's biography on Archibald Brown, the successor of C. H. Spurgeon during the late 1800's up unto the beginning of WWI and then read through Banner of Truth and Trust's two volume compilation of his sermons. Wow! It was like hearing sermons written for today's struggles. I also read Ellie Wiesel's Night. My goodness...if there was ever a time to just give up and die. Some did. Many survived but were dead inside until the physical caught up with the spirit. I read it in one sitting. Captivating. Convicting. Contemplative. Man's inhumanity to man. Hope in times of absolute hopelessness. 

The great Catholic Theologian, G. K. Chesterton wrote, "Hope is hoping when  things are hopeless or it is no virtue at all. As long as matters are really hopeful, hope is mere flattery or platitude; it is only when everything is hopeless that hope begins to be a strength." 

I saw this first hand when I worked with Hospice as a guest pastor. Those who were terminal and had no hope died very quickly. Those who had hope lived and some even recovered to the amazement of the medical community. 

Theologically, I know this. When the spirit is willing but the body is weak, it will keep pressing forward. But when the spirit is weak and gives up hope, the body will quickly follow. 

There is a story of a little boy who was hospitalized with a very serious illness, each day getting worse, each day giving up. His school, along with his parents, asked his teacher if she would be willing to go up and make sure that he kept up on some of his school work. If nothing more, it was a distraction from the seriousness of his illness. The boy made an amazing recovery and the doctors asked him what changed. He said, "Well...I was about to give up hope of getting better but then they sent my teacher up to teach me about nouns and verbs. I thought, 'If I was dying, why would I need to learn about nouns and verbs.'" 

Hope is a powerful thing. 

A man approached a little league baseball dugout and asked one of the boys what the score was. He said with a smile, "We're losing eighteen to zero." The stranger said, "How can you be so happy about that?" The boy said, "Well, pretty soon we'll be up to bat!"

Hope is a pretty power thing. 

Don't be discouraged. We'll soon be up to bat.