What Does Everyone Want?

What is the one thing that everyone wants?  It’s universal and timeless.  The people in Russia want it just as much as the people in Singapore.  You need it, I need it, kids need it, parents’ need it, singles need it, widows need it, everyone needs it.  What is it that every man woman and child who has ever lived on this planet must have?  Hope.  

When we are sick we hope we get better.  When our friends are sick we hope they get better.  We hope our kids do well at school.  We hope we can enjoy a healthy fulfilling retirement. We hope our job brings us joy or pleasure, and at a minimal level the finances we need to get by.  We hope there is peace in the world and that our governmental leaders will use their common sense to bring it about. Ultimately we hope that our lives matter.   

Hope can come in many shapes and sizes.  It can be found in many places and in many forms.  When I am sick and go see the doctor, hope can come with a prescription.  When my back hurts hope arrives in the hands of my chiropractor.  If I were to get in an accident hope arrives in a police car and an ambulance.  If my house were on fire hope appears in the form of a fire truck.  Hope can show up at your door in the form of a friend or in the mail as a handwritten letter.  Hope has the ability to get us up off the floor and going again. 

Hope can also be illusive.  When we put our hope in that magic little pill the doctor gives us and it doesn’t work, then what?  Where is the hope?  When my chiropractor can’t seem to fix my back who or what will give me hope?  If I get in an accident and my transportation or my health is in shambles where can I find hope?  If a friend forgets to call or write where will my hope come from?  Situations like these help us to quickly become hopeless.            

Psalm 62:5-6 says:  “Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him.  He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.”  The never ending source of hope is God himself.  People can bring hope, medicine can bring hope, and gazillions of other things can bring some form of hope but God alone has the ability to provide enough hope to pick us up and see us through.  It doesn’t matter what situation you are facing or going through, this is a universal truth.  That means that the same source of hope that the apostles leaned on, Dr. Martin Luther King Junior longed for, and that I clung to during my son’s battle with Leukemia is still available to all of us because every Christian believer serves the same living God, Jesus Christ.  

The hope that raised Jesus Christ from the dead is available to you. Put your faith in Him. Trust Him. Believe that He loves you, cares about you, and will be with you because that is the truth. Bring your situation to God in prayer, cry out to God and receive all that He has for you. Sometimes answered prayer has a face and a name, other times circumstances change or God gives you the wisdom to navigate through the problem. Just lean into your faith and hold onto Jesus and you will have peace.