Pray that all people may find hope

I work with a young man who is an atheist.  We have talked about my faith only a couple of times and I’m sorry to say I have not been able to persuade him to just listen for Jesus’ voice in his life.  From the few conversations we have had, it is obvious that he has no hope for an eternal life, and, it seems, he has no hope in this life either.  What a shame. I’ll keep trying to show him, through my example (I hope) that God exists, and that He loves every one of us, in spite of ourselves. 

We sit in what seems to be a growing darkness in the world, and we increasingly recognize that we are helpless to truly change our situation.  Whether we be Christians or not, we almost literally await a savior from elsewhere, and our longing is intense—although we seek to abate that longing with what is not God, such as drugs, sex, food, possessions, power, pleasure, and any warm fuzzies or bright and shiny things that can distract us from that almost painful hunger.

Isaiah proclaims that there is hope for those who have sought to yearn and hunger honestly (Isaiah 56:1-3a, 6-8), a theme that Jesus develops in the Beatitudes (John 5:33-36), and we must empty ourselves of depending on these insufficient substitutes for the salvation we seek.  That can amount to emptying ourselves completely even of a desire for good things, such as health and long life, and we can then receive the salvation that our God, in His infinite love and wisdom, wishes to give us and in whatever way He thinks best.

And John makes it clear that the salvation that the Father sends is His Son, His Jesus.  We must yearn for that Word of love from the Father, must hunger deeply and pray constantly for His coming to us as individuals and as a world, and we must do His works as we wait.

Pray for the gift of honest and deep hunger, for only those who hunger and thirst will be filled with the Lord.  Only those who desire honestly and deeply, who accept an uncomfortable salvation, can truly find life in a Crucified Lord.