It’s been a year today that I had thoracic surgery to remove a tumor growing on my vagus nerve. One year since I lost my full voice to the nerve damage. I am now in true miracle territory. My doctor hasn’t extended any statistics for rejuvenation beyond a year, and she’s ready for permanent surgery when I am…if my sensitive nerve would just cooperate.
Tomorrow will be 11 years since we moved to Jacksonville. Eleven years of driving around the city looking for buildings. Our need for a church home has had us in miracle territory for a long time now.
I’ve been stuck for weeks on a verse from Colossians in the Message Bible. “The lines of purpose in your lives never grow slack, tightly tied as they are to your future in heaven, kept taut by hope” (Colossians 1:5). In this great big story of God, my story finds purpose and that doesn’t stop being true because of the things that I consider set-backs or detours. My purpose never grows slack if held taut by hope. I’m getting a strong feeling that the purpose is God’s work and the hope is mine. He absolutely has the harder job, because, well, He’s God, but keeping hope is a pretty hard job for us jars of clay.
A little later in the same chapter, Paul says: “As you learn more and more how God works, you will learn how to do your work” (Colossians 1:10). The only way to learn how God works is to trust Him, watch, and listen. To follow close on His heels like an apprentice observing each move of his teacher. My Teacher’s ways are so unlike mine, so I have to stay very near to learn. My work is hope, and I think the hope isn’t in my story but His. Mine is always going to be marked with the disappointment and limitation of this world. His will always be grand. When I find my story inside of His, my gaze and resolve shift from me to Him. When that shift happens, a whole new seed of hope comes to life in my heart. It connects me to my purpose, to my Jesus, and to heaven. It is bigger and more secure than the selfish things I’ve placed my hope in before.
The difficulty is living in the tension. That is our human condition. We’ll never fully get past it on this side of heaven. The great big grand story that we’re a part of and the living in a world that falls sadly short of it. What do we do? How do we endure it? We keep hope taut. We settle in our souls that He’ll never let go of His end of the line. We stand firm in the fact that He created us for a purpose, and He will see it through to heaven. We hold onto the comfort that our God is not holding out on us. We rest in the truth that He’s good and He loves well. Then we do our part. We tug on the line of hope as hard and tight as we can until the day He says, “Well done.” We dig our heels into the muddy ground and pull like our lives depend on it…because they just might. Then we look up to heaven, raise our voice as loud as we can, and recommit…“I told You I would follow and I’ll never take it back.”