A Living Hope

"You can't eat hope," the woman said.

"You can't eat it, but it sustains you," the colonel replied.

-Gabriel Garcia Marquez

It was September 1989, and as I sat in my rented car in the complete blackness

of the frontier between Communist Hungary and Communist Romania, panic

filled my entire being.  My goal was to get through the Romanian border and I

knew that it would be a merciless exercise of interrogation. Not only would I be

mentally interrogated, but also searched and scrutinized physically, as well as

my vehicle would be torn apart by limb by limb.  This exercise would take place 

by Communist guards, custom control and secret police.  Not to mention, I could

be arrested on the spot.

Everything I was bringing in my vehicle, as well as my purpose of being there was

against the Socialist Communist agenda, but Western tourists were allowed to visit

with the right amount of currency and a good tourist story.  My true purpose was

to bring relief to the Christians and the Romanian church that was suffering and

persecuted by the anti-Christian, Communist regime.

The Romanian believers were starving for Bibles, Christian commentaries, Bible

study guides, medicine, eyeglasses, food and just about anything you need to live normally.  But Romania during the 1980s was anything but normal.  Everything was rationed and all Christian materials were banned.  The Romanian people were starving for everything that the Western church had to offer.

As I stared at the Romanian border in my near horizon, I realized that I did not have

to endure what that Communist border would put me through.  Why?  I lived

in Southern California.  A comfortable existence with everything I needed at my disposal.  Plus, I had a wonderful little family at home, and a loving, supportive church.  I didn't need to do this.  Right?

As fear and panic spoke seemingly good sense to me, another Voice whispered to me, (It is as clear to me today, as it was 25 years ago), and said:

Darnelle, there are people waiting for you behind that border.  They are not waiting for the "things" in your car, but for the hope you bring them.  They are risking more for that than you will ever risk in your lifetime.

The Voice of Truth was right and as I survived that border crossing and met - secretly – those Romanian believers, I actually saw hope transform their hearts and their faces as they realized that their hope was not dead or in vain as the Western church had not forgotten them.

Job spoke in his suffering that the hope of the godless will die.  That kind of hope that wishes things will just get better.  But Peter tells us that as Christians we have a "living hope," which is faith in a living, breathing Savior, Jesus Christ.  

The hope never disappoints us and that sustains us in all things as we hope in Him.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!  According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.  - I Peter 1:3-5

In Him, our Living Hope!

Darnelle