Hope

Lately God has been telling me to be an optimist.

This doesn't seem like the radical of a call. Most of my life I have been considered an optimist. Even when I was shy kid in Junior High with no friends, I am not sure that I was depressed. When I was in High School, while I was not really involved in anything, I was mostly content and occasionally happy. In college, I actually chose to hope and believe that Jesus might really not be dead. he decision put me on the path of making other optimistic choices; going to China, dating Donan, bringing up my faith life to friends and eventually going on staff with InterVarsity.

However, faced with harsh realities in life I have grown less optimistic, less childlike and ultimately, more practical.

My mind reverberates with phrases like; "realistic goals" and "incremental changes". I have even had people at my church tell that I have grown up. Their evidence? That I don't talk about changing the world as much anymore and I seem more grounded.

How do you pray grounded prayers? How can a grounded person believe in foolishness like resurrection from the dead? How can groundedness and transformation co-exist?

My groundedness is born from my deeply held desire to no taste disappointment. Too often I have watched people I love make poor choices. Too often I have believed that I have been "fixed" only to struggle again. Too often I believed in a miracle that God has chosen not to perform (at least not how I hoped He would).

So day by day, year by year my life becomes less audacious and more practical. Practicality becomes a vice grip on my lungs and I learn to breathe shallowly.

And ultimately, God becomes smaller and smaller.

So now, God is asking me to learn how to hope again. The image God has given me? A balloon.

I have become taken with the image a balloon being released from a child's hand and floating up, up and away. A balloon, completely subject to the wind has become the rallying image for my heart.

I want to fly far from the ground. I want to believe in a God who can do the impossible. I want to live an impossible life. I want to live in a disappointing world with counter-cultural, ballsy optimism. I want optimism to become as much of a spiritual discipline as praying or reading the Bible.

So I am trying to re-learn hope. I am asking God to teach me the ways of hope. I know that hope will often leave a person looking foolish and naive, but what do I have to lose?

After all, I already believe that a dead guy didn't stay dead.