“God grant me the courage not to give up what I think is right even though I think it is hopeless.” ~ Chester W. Nimitz
There is a struggle in which we engage each and every day of our lives. It’s the struggle between our human nature and our soul. Our soul attempts to steer us in the right direction so that we may have the opportunity to live with God for eternity in heaven. Our human nature, on the other hand, is often rooted in this world in which we live. The world has all sorts of temptations and lures that appeal to our humanity.
Our human nature is often prone to giving up. We strive to be hopeful about many things but when we meet opposition, we often fold like a worn hand of cards. We give up. We look for something else. This happens to us in our daily lives and it also happens to us in our spiritual lives. No matter how hard our soul tries to hold firm, our humanity tells our soul that there is no hope.
But there is. Hope was assured to us in the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus took something that looked meaningless and hopeless and transformed it totally. He made a symbol of hate and death — the cross — into a symbol of hope and life. When we cling to the cross, we have all the hope we need.
To our human nature, this sounds so backwards. Why cling to a cross? Why choose, potentially, to suffer? Why not abandon ourselves to the sure thing of the world rather than to cling to what is unseen? That, my friends, is a question that each of us has to answer on our own. That is the question we grapple each day. That is at the heart of our struggle.
Nimitz asked for courage in order to hold on to hope even in hopeless situations. Courage seems like the perfect ingredient for us as well. God, we know that your Son made the cross a symbol of hope. Grant us the courage to hold firm, to endure, to shoulder our crosses even if the world tells us that it is hopeless.
FAITH ACTION: Look to the Lord for the hope that you need in order to be a faithful Christian.