Winter 2018/2019 OCCM/FAITH FAMILY winter2018INDESIGN | Page 22
HOPE has a Name
continued by Greg Laurie
So if you have lost a loved one, go ahead and cry. You don’t need to rush through the
process. Go ahead and mourn, but cry out to God, who cares about you. And don’t trade
what you do know for what you don’t know. Here is what I do know: I know that God loves
me. Here is what I do know: I know that God can work “all things . . . together for good to
those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28
nkjv). I know that I will see my son again. I know that one day all of my questions will be
answered. So I will not trade what I do know for what I don’t know. Instead, I will simply
say, “God, help me.” He is in control of my life. The word “oops” is not in his vocabulary.
We live in a fallen world that has pain and tragedy. Things don’t always make sense. Jesus
even said, “In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome
the world” (John 16:33 nkjv).
Sometimes we can understand, to a degree, when bad things happen to bad people. A bad
person does a bad thing, and there are repercussions. We think, You see? What goes
around comes around.
But what about when a bad thing happens to a good person? I will give you the answer: I
don’t know. I don’t really feel like I have all the answers, because I am a fellow struggler, a
fellow mourner. I don’t have what people need, but I know who does. Hope has a name,
and it is Jesus Christ.
Nick Vujicic, author of Life Without Limits, was born without limbs. He asked the
understandable question: “If God loved me, why did he allow me to be born without arms
or legs?” Nick wondered what purpose his life could possibly have and even contemplated
suicide. He prayed that God would cause his limbs to grow, but that miracle was not
granted. Instead, God showed Nick that he was the miracle. Nick has spoken at some of our
Harvest Crusades and has traveled around the world, bringing hope and encouragement to
millions of people.
You may be wondering where there is hope in all of the pain we face in life. For some
there is a hope that things will just get better: that relationship will be mended, that illness
may be healed, that job offer will come through. But there are others who have permanent
disabilities or have lost a loved one, and there is no hope—at least here on earth. But this is
where we must change our thinking and remember that life is not all about our time on
earth. The Bible says our lives are like “a vapor that appears for a little time and then
vanishes away” (James 4:14 nkjv). Of this we can be certain: death will come. It is inevitable.
However, the Bible does teach that we will live forever. Every person has a soul and will
live for eternity. This doesn’t mean that heaven is the default destination of everyone who
dies. We determine where we will live forever. The Bible says, “It is appointed for men to
die once, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27 nkjv).
We don’t determine the day of our birth, nor do we determine the day of our death. We
really have nothing to say about that. But we have a lot to say about that dash in the
middle. We have a lot to say about how we live our lives and what we do with them.
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