The Life Ahead of Us.

The Apostle Paul said that "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we
are of all men most miserable. I Cor 15:19

We Can Only Hope for What We Desire
12/16/2007
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Once we come to accept that we can never find or hang on to the life we have
been seeking, what then? As Dallas Willard writes, it matters for all the
world to know that life is ahead of us.

I meet many faithful Christians who, in spite of their faith, are deeply
disappointed in how their lives have turned out. Sometimes it is simply a
matter of how they experience aging, which they take to mean they no longer
have a future. But often, due to circumstances or wrongful decisions and
actions by others, what they had hoped to accomplish in life they did not .
. . Much of the distress of these good people comes from a failure to
realize that their life lies before them . . . the life that lies endlessly
before us in the kingdom of God. (The Divine Conspiracy)

Blaise Pascal also observed, "We are never living, but hoping to live; and
whilst we are always preparing to be happy, it is certain, we never shall be
so, if we aspire to no other happiness than what can be enjoyed in this
life."

Desire cannot live without hope. Yet, we can only hope for what we desire.
There simply must be something more, something out there on the road ahead
of us, that offers the life we prize. To sustain the life of the heart, the
life of deep desire, we desperately need to possess a clearer picture of the
life that lies before us.

(The Journey of Desire , 104-5)

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From The Ransomed Heart, by John Eldredge, reading 350