The Light in Our EyesSample

HOPE FOR TODAY—AND TOMORROW

“Would they see hope in your eyes?”

I was standing before a church congregation. I quoted several statistics about today’s cynicism—the anxiety, the pain, the de­pression. The “dechurching” we read about.

“We live in a country filled with despair. I can see it in the eyes of the next generation. If I brought them to your church, would they find what they’re looking for? Would they find hope? Would they see light in your eyes?”

By hope, I didn’t mean some wishy-washy thing. Hope, in the Bible, isn’t a wish. It’s an expectation. Paul said the three great vir­tues of the Christian life are “faith, hope and love” (1 Corin­thians 13:13). Do we really suppose that Paul was saying a mature Christian is all about “faith, wishful thinking, and love”? I don’t think so. Hope is a clear, anchored vision of the kingdom future, given to us by Jesus Himself.

Over the years, I’ve had hundreds of conversations with college students about their faith. I see what statisticians are also seeing: People aren’t leaving church because they reject Christian orthodoxy. They’re leaving because they reject evangelical culture. That’s why I no longer try to help others “reconstruct” their faith. Recon­struction isn’t what any of us need. What we need is renewal. We need restoration. We need a new story. A story that ends not in cynicism but in hope. That, I believe, is what the true gospel, the original gospel of Jesus, gives to the world.

That’s what I was asking that congregation that day. I wanted to remind them—and us—that we have the answer to the cynicism of today: Hope. Tangible, real, feel-it-in-your-gut hope. Hope based on Jesus’s kingdom-sized dreams of love, beauty, and freedom. Jesus’s dreams are realized through His resurrection. He’s the only Dreamer whose dreams come true. He’s the only Dreamer we can trust. Jesus is the only man standing absolutely on the right side of history.

Let that truth give you hope today. For yourself, for those who have rejected church for now, and for the world around us. The hope of Jesus has not changed. Do you hold that light in your eyes?

In what ways do you need gospel hope in your life right now? In what ways do you personally need restoration?