Hope to me is a big deal but not for basic survival. The world is full of functional people, surviving people, who are basically hopeless. I think you have to have hope in order to excel and advance. Hope goes with progression like biscuits and gravy.
I think survival is way overrated and dreams achieved much less celebrated then they should be. One of the major enemies of our progression is the willingness to just survive the day. I don’t want to be a survivor. I want to be an overcomer. I don’t want to barely make it through the day and crawl into bed beat up and dreading the next day. Sometimes surviving stinks.
I want to win the race and walk off my battlefields victoriously. I want to be passionate and full of life. In other words - I want to be full of hope. Hope makes you love life instead of fearing it.
I think Christianity would be a lot more attractive to non-Christians if there weren’t so many lemon faces among us. Instead of singing praises, a lot of us sing Gloom, despair and agony on me from Hee-Haw. Two thousand years ago, Peter seemed to think it was a given that Christians would be noticed for being people outrageously hopeful. He said, “…be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you…” 1 Peter 3:15
One of the greatest side benefits of really walking with God, is you get to learn how to love your life. Oh the Brewer loves to love this life of mine because I can’t stand to be miserable. I hate self-pity and the terrible bondage of misery more than I hate black lickerish and Indian food.
So I guard my hope the way my grandfather used to guard his hidden stash in the cigar box. I wont let myself keep a list of unanswered prayers but I do keep a list of those I’ve seen come to pass. I try not to focus on what I don’t understand and make a really big deal out of whatever revelation I do have.
I figure if I am walking around discouraged, then I’m feeding myself with the wrong stuff. It’s not just my responsibility, but my privilege to be encouraged. I get to be the guy that lives life full of hope. I don’t want to give that up, no mater how many trash dumps I feed people in, orphanages I visit or truckloads of groceries we hand out, I get to be the guy that lives life full of hope.
If wishes were horses…
I recently heard an awesome man of God give his spin on what Hope ought to be. He said, “Hope is not a wish. Hope is the joyful anticipation of good.”
Instead of living life wishing things were different; I want to live a life expecting something good to happen. Why, you ask? Because God is good and wants to do good stuff. It’s really that simple. I partner with God by having hope and being a little ancy for really good things to happen. Turns out, hope is a fun thing to have.
The same man of God also said, “Any area of my life which doesn’t have hope is under the influence of a lie.” Hearing this statement made my baby leap.
Magnifying power
The Biblical term for making a big deal out of something is to magnify something. May God give us all grace to magnify the things that matter and pay less attention to the things that don’t. Jesus loves you and smiles when He thinks about you. There’s great hope in this and hopefully it’s contagious.
Job 36:24
“Remember to magnify His work, of which men have sung”
Contact the Brewer via www.FreshFromTheBrewer.com
Showing posts with label hope. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hope. Show all posts
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Leap Of Faith
When the sun finally came up it proved to be a beautiful Tuesday morning. Cool fall air and not a cloud in the sky. The morning commute to downtown Manhattan seemed a little more pleasant than usual. Jonathan Briley walked into the World Trade Center that fateful day looking up as always. I think about him.
The son of a Baptist Pastor, Jonathan grew up working on his daddy’s P.A. system. His interest in music and speaking eventually landed him a job at the famed restaurant Windows of the World as the sound engineer. Anytime there was a conference or a celebration, it was Jonathan’s job to set up and run the sound equipment.
On September 11th, 2001, the restaurant was holding a breakfast for 16 members of the Waters Financial Technology Congress, and 71 other guests. It was a day Jonathan had to be there early. About 20 minutes after he arrived, American Airlines flight 11 slammed into the North Tower just a few stories beneath him.
Eating in that same restaurant was Alayne Gentul, 44, a senior vice-president of the Fiduciary Trust and mother of two. As the room began to fill up with smoke she called her husband.
“Smoke is coming in from everywhere, Jack.” She labored to tell her husband. “Guys are breaking the windows.”
“Honey, go to the stairs and get out of there.”
“We can’t,” she responded, “it’s too hot in the stairs. Like an oven.”
Cameras and History
So many terrible things happened that day we will not forget. Some, we will want to.
As the estimated 1000 people trapped on floors 100 through 107 began trying to move away from the inferno, New Yorkers looked up with their hands over their mouths.
A photojournalist named Richard Drew, lived close to the towers. Richard was already no stranger to history. He had been one of only four photographers in the room when Bobby Kennedy was assassinated nearly forty years earlier.
At 9:41 am, 56 minutes after the ordeal had started; Richard pointed his I-lens upward and caught a man falling. He took 12 pictures of Jonathan Briley as he plunged 1300 feet to Church Street below.
The Falling Man
It’s believed that Jonathan is the famous “falling man”. The picture seen by millions throughout the world, of a person headed straight down completely vertical, almost casual.
His arms are by his side; his left leg is bent at the knee, and his white jacket billowing free against black pants. In the one famous picture he perfectly splits the towers. The north tower is to his left and the south tower to his right. Its an amazing photograph and one most of wish we hadn’t seen.
Jonathan was asthmatic and the toxic fumes forced him outside for almost an hour before he took flight. I think he thought it better to die flying then to die choking. In a place where every option had been taken away from him he somehow mustered the courage to step out of the heat and into the hands of God.
In one of many interviews, Jonathan's elder sister, Gwendolyn, says: “When I first looked at the picture... and I saw it was a man like him, tall and slim, I said, ‘If I didn't know any better, that could be Jonathan.’
When asked if his apparent jumping collided with their Christian theology she said something I think is quite brilliant. “Let me tell you how much Jonathan loved God. He trusted him so much that he jumped 105 stories expecting God to catch him.” To Gwendolyn there was victory for her brother even in this tragedy…. especially in this tragedy.
No matter what terrible thing we are facing today, it pales compared to what Jonathan faced. Whatever tough decisions, I hope we have the courage to trust God when nothing else makes since. Jonathan Briley and his sister Gwendolyn preach to me. They help me.
I believe the next time we see Jonathan; he won’t be falling at all…he’ll be risen. Now that’s a picture I want to see.
1 Corinthians 15:54
“So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”
The son of a Baptist Pastor, Jonathan grew up working on his daddy’s P.A. system. His interest in music and speaking eventually landed him a job at the famed restaurant Windows of the World as the sound engineer. Anytime there was a conference or a celebration, it was Jonathan’s job to set up and run the sound equipment.
On September 11th, 2001, the restaurant was holding a breakfast for 16 members of the Waters Financial Technology Congress, and 71 other guests. It was a day Jonathan had to be there early. About 20 minutes after he arrived, American Airlines flight 11 slammed into the North Tower just a few stories beneath him.
Eating in that same restaurant was Alayne Gentul, 44, a senior vice-president of the Fiduciary Trust and mother of two. As the room began to fill up with smoke she called her husband.
“Smoke is coming in from everywhere, Jack.” She labored to tell her husband. “Guys are breaking the windows.”
“Honey, go to the stairs and get out of there.”
“We can’t,” she responded, “it’s too hot in the stairs. Like an oven.”
Cameras and History
So many terrible things happened that day we will not forget. Some, we will want to.
As the estimated 1000 people trapped on floors 100 through 107 began trying to move away from the inferno, New Yorkers looked up with their hands over their mouths.
A photojournalist named Richard Drew, lived close to the towers. Richard was already no stranger to history. He had been one of only four photographers in the room when Bobby Kennedy was assassinated nearly forty years earlier.
At 9:41 am, 56 minutes after the ordeal had started; Richard pointed his I-lens upward and caught a man falling. He took 12 pictures of Jonathan Briley as he plunged 1300 feet to Church Street below.
The Falling Man
It’s believed that Jonathan is the famous “falling man”. The picture seen by millions throughout the world, of a person headed straight down completely vertical, almost casual.
His arms are by his side; his left leg is bent at the knee, and his white jacket billowing free against black pants. In the one famous picture he perfectly splits the towers. The north tower is to his left and the south tower to his right. Its an amazing photograph and one most of wish we hadn’t seen.
Jonathan was asthmatic and the toxic fumes forced him outside for almost an hour before he took flight. I think he thought it better to die flying then to die choking. In a place where every option had been taken away from him he somehow mustered the courage to step out of the heat and into the hands of God.
In one of many interviews, Jonathan's elder sister, Gwendolyn, says: “When I first looked at the picture... and I saw it was a man like him, tall and slim, I said, ‘If I didn't know any better, that could be Jonathan.’
When asked if his apparent jumping collided with their Christian theology she said something I think is quite brilliant. “Let me tell you how much Jonathan loved God. He trusted him so much that he jumped 105 stories expecting God to catch him.” To Gwendolyn there was victory for her brother even in this tragedy…. especially in this tragedy.
No matter what terrible thing we are facing today, it pales compared to what Jonathan faced. Whatever tough decisions, I hope we have the courage to trust God when nothing else makes since. Jonathan Briley and his sister Gwendolyn preach to me. They help me.
I believe the next time we see Jonathan; he won’t be falling at all…he’ll be risen. Now that’s a picture I want to see.
1 Corinthians 15:54
“So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”
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