Hope

My wife and I are ESPN junkies.  There is a better than average chance that if the TV is on, ESPN is the channel that it is set to.  Tonight we sat down for a quick minute after taking the pooch to the park and there was a show on in which ESPN had put together several pieces highlighting some stars from this past NFL season.  It was a kind of "behind the scenes look" at the lives of these football players, what motivates them, etc.  There were two that stuck out to me because, in one very key aspect, they were polar opposites: Cam Newton and Aaron Rodgers.  Now I don't know either of these guys from the man on the moon, but I couldn't help but notice the striking difference.  

Now I will preface this little commentary with this: I have no idea what was actually going through the minds of these two men during these interviews.  But I did watch their faces, and this is what it looked like to me.  First came Cam Newton who exuded a youthful exuberance.  The future lay before him: there are superbowls to win, pro-bowls to attend, records to be re-written.  The essence of life flowed from a game that he is dead set on conquering.  On the other hand there was Aaron Rodgers.  He has been there and done all that Cam Newton aspires to.  He has re-written the record book, done the pro-bowl, won a superbowl and made a city forget a first ballot hall of famer.  And the look in his eyes while the reported was going over all those accolades with him was one that looked like boredom.  I don't know what he was thinking, but he looked bored, as if he had come to the realization that everything he had achieved still left him lacking.  The reporter then asked him about the NFL MVP award and what it would mean to win that.  For a brief instant, that same exuberance that was all over Cam Newton's face came into the eyes of Aaron Rodgers as he truthfully answered that winning the award would mean a great deal, as it would be a vindication for the work he has put in when no one is looking.  And then, in a flash, that exuberance was gone.  It was as if his mind caught up with his emotions and he knew deep down that it would just be another award that would give him a cheap high and leave him empty again.

What is our hope in.  Hope, by definition, is expectation for that which is unseen and/or unrealized.  Rodgers hopes to win the MVP because he hasn't won it yet and he has real expectation for winning it this year.  If I said I hoped to be married some day you would think I am crazy (because I am already married).  What is our hope in?  Or put another way, what is it that we hope for?

Seven years ago today (the wednesday before the superbowl - which was actually Feb 2 in 2005) I was put under anesthesia for a surgery in which they planned to remove my large intestine.  I remember two things clearly from that day.  First, I remember the surgeon.  She stood at the end of my bed and, after telling me what she thought was wrong, said, "You are never going to fly airplanes in the Navy again."  In the amount of time it took you to read that sentence, my world ended.  The only other thing I remember from that day was crying between the time she told me that and I went under for surgery.  I cried because everything my hope was in was ripped out of my hands in a heartbeat.  My whole life had been dedicated to earning a pilot slot and then excelling in flight school and I had finally made the big leagues.  I had made the equivalent of an NFL roster.  I was flying the newest, most advanced fighter in the Navy.  I was Cam Newton.  Only, I was Cam Newton in training camp and I would never get a rookie season.  I got drafted, signed, and went through training camp only to lose my dream in the first game of my rookie season.  Everything I hoped for, everything I thought was important was gone in an instant.

I ended up being in surgery for five days.  I woke up on the day the Patriots last won a superbowl (maybe that's why I am cheering for them this weekend...).  I woke up in a new world, a world in which my hope was not in flying, could not be flying ever again because as much as I wanted to fight it, I knew I would never fly fast jets again.  And then I came to a realization: everything in this world will fail me.  One day my job will be gone.  My house will be gone.  All my little electronic trinkets that I think are so cool will be in the trash.  Either I will die or the people I love will die and be gone.  This world, and all that is in it, is passing away.  And so I ask, what I had to ask myself: what is your hope in.  Now, there were quite a few other things that happened that I will probably write about in the coming days, but the realization I came to is that my hope must be in Christ.  For if Christ is not God, then there is nothing worth hoping in.  But if He is who He said He is (God) then He is the only thing worth hoping in.