False Hope

Post 156

I woke up this morning from an unusual dream.
Don’t read into this anymore than “just a dream”. We all have them, and this one was nothing more. But I believe this dream was due to several significant circumstances this week, all with direct application.
Please make a conscious effort to place yourself in my dream in order to get the significance for your own application, as well as for a secondary application for our nation. In this post I will be applying it primarily nationally:

I was passenger in a van with several friends. We were happily driving on an abandon secondary road high in the tropical mountains of some undefined island location.
The thick tropical trees were overgrowing the road and brushing against both sides of the truck as we bounced along at a good pace.
I was leaning out of the window trying to grab wild fruit from periodic trees as we drove.
Everyone was laughing and having a fun time enjoying the experience.
Ahead was a tree with large fruit leaning into the road even more than most. I was sure I could get one of these.
As we pushed through the tree I almost had one in my hand, when the road made a sharp turn to the right, but not seeing the turn in time, the van drove straight…
Right off a cliff into the air 6000 feet above the ocean.

And for a second, time seemed to stop.

I saw the driver aggressively turning the steering wheel in the fleeting fruitless panic to return to the road.
I saw the girl sitting next to me frozen with a sheer look of blank terror.
I heard the guy behind the driver thumping the side of the van and seat as he randomly thrashed around grabbing at nothing like a cat just run over in the street.
And in my own mind I was grasping at the reality that we really did just drive off a cliff.
I had that sick feeling of “this can’t be real” as I saw through the windshield the ocean still very far away.

Then time returned to normal, and in a single second I mentally evaluated all the possibilities;
Do I stay in the van and ride it down?
Do I open the door and freefall with my skydiving experience?
Do I look in the cargo and try to make a parachute out of a tarp and rope?
How do I help those in the van with me?
What are our best chances in the variety of options?

All of these possible options always resulted in the same outcome;
Death.

And then I woke.

* * *
Now thinking about this incident, what do you see if viewed from the perspective of a bystander walking along the road?
He does not know us in the van. He has no personal connection to the incident.
He saw a van drive off the cliff and plunge thousands of feet into the ocean.
It didn’t change his life in the least.
The event was not a process, but a moment in time.
It was a tragic car wreck, plain and simple.

From his perspective those people died the moment they left the road. And he would be right… plus about 2.6 minutes. Whatever they did in the van for those last moments made no difference in the least, just as if they did nothing at all.

But for those of us in the van, those 2.6 minutes is a lifetime!
Analyzing that time in slow-motion for evaluation purposes, there was a lot going on in that 2.6 minutes. Or was it 2.5?
There were whole lives lived in that time.
Evaluations made, actions put forth, things rejected and things tried.
Those of us in the van were not willing to just say; “That’s it, I’m dead.”
We had to live to the very last moment attempting to beat the odds, or at least make our odds better, no matter how slim they were, we had to try.

Why?

The answer is; “Hope”

* * *
Now what good would it do to start screaming; “WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!”?
This helps no one, regardless of how true it is.
Many people, and I think perhaps most, would rather ignore the obvious and stay Busy trying; "something”.
And why not? It certainly can’t hurt... or can it?

Blame is something many like to keep themselves occupied with in such a time;
Whose fault was it?
Was it me who distracted everyone?
Was it the highway department for letting that tree grow obscuring the road?
Was it the driver, who should have taken more caution?

And then there is the Regrets that people cling to;
IF only I had stayed home and mowed the lawn.
IF only we had decided to take the other fork.
IF only I had been able to get the fruit, we might have stopped.

And we finish the list with Denial.

With all these variables there is still only one outcome.
But hope keeps us going, while blame, regret and denial help us ignore reality.

Hope can be a good thing, and a very powerful motivator.
But more often than not, hope is a false security. Hope has a way of ignoring all the facts, all the history, all the conditions, all reason.
Hope needs no support.

Hope; from Greek elpis; (to anticipate, usually with pleasure); expectation (abstract or concrete) confidence.

* * *
And here is where it finally all comes clear to me.

I have been writing my blog with a big picture in mind, which I have been attempting to show one brushstroke at a time.
But the reader, unable to yet see the big picture, reads my blog as promoting hopelessness.
The nature of a blog is for an isolated random thought, and few take the time to read back even half a dozen posts, let alone the 150 I have used to develop my thought.
So many might see my blog as screaming; “WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!”

This is not the picture I am painting, but I can see how it looks like that right now.

And now I understand why all the facts, all the documentation, all the evidence, all the history, all the logic and reasoning makes no difference.
Because Hope needs no support. Hope can ignore all the evidence to the contrary.
And when all seems lost, we cling to hope.

I realize I have been painting a very bleak picture of doom.
And there is far more canvas and paint available to make the bleak picture bigger, with more detail.
But at this point what’s the use?
You get the idea.
You see enough evidence to grasp reality if you want to.
We can all see the ocean far below through the windshield of our national van as we plummet to the end.

* * *
This week I was called out to recover the body of a local man I know, who was cross country skiing with a friend and suddenly died of an apparent heart attack.

In his van of life he was happily driving along and then wasn’t.

* * *
Last night I got a call from a woman friend who said her husband wants a divorce.
And suddenly her familiar life comes crashing in on her.
In her van of marriage she was safely driving along and then wasn’t.

* * *
What is your scenario?
For most of us, life is showing us the signs that things are coming unraveled.
But we keep driving along oblivious to the dangers ahead.

After your van leaves the road is the wrong time to try and fix the problems.
It is the wrong time to use caution.
It is the wrong time to try solutions.
It is the wrong time to listen to reason.

This is reality in a very harsh way.

I want in the strongest way to quote scripture that promises hope and help and good things for America. I know lots of those passages.
But what I get from God for America are very dark and fearful passages.

“Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up a cry or prayer for them: for I will not hear them in the time that they cry unto me for their trouble.” Jeremiah 11:14

The book of Jeremiah was written to the Jewish people as a warning for their evil ways, and the consequences that would follow if they did not repent.
But it is also a universal truth.
Any nation that takes this same path will face the same events.
Jeremiah 12:14-17 identifies this inclusion and ends with;
“But if they will not obey, I will utterly pluck up and destroy that nation, saith the LORD”

America has driven her van off the cliff.
The reason is at this time irrelevant.
Who is at fault is also irrelevant.
Thoughts of regret only obscure the observation of reality.
And so as a nation we continue in action because of hope. But hope in what?
Reality shows that there is no action that can now change the inevitable outcome.
Only ignorance of the real facts would allow denial.

It is time to personally forget these useless struggles of turning the steering wheel,
The time to turn all our attention into action to keep the van on the road is past.

As long as this present life is all you can see, then the doom is very black indeed, and hope is all you have to cling to. And you get angry with me for pointing out the dire situation.

For those of us in the van of my dream, death was a soon and sure result.
But life does not end there.
In the scenario of the van full of people, they have an after life they will soon enter.
In the scenario of the ruined marriage, there is a different, single life that comes next.
In the scenario of a nation’s end, there is life still lived in a different circumstance under a different government.
This is the point and focus of my blog; preparation for this next life.
I am looking into the future to a true hope with a solid promise; "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end."(a pre-planned result) Jeremiah 29:11
But as long as you cling so tightly to empty hope of surviving this life, you cannot prepare for the next one. it is to these "clingers" that God refuses to hear when their 2.6 minutes come.

The point of the dream is true in all cases, with somewhat different applications yet all similar.
Life goes on, though in a way that cannot at this time be seen or understood.

And in each scenario the proper action is surprisingly the same;
The primary attention to your relationship with your Creator nearly to the exclusion of everything else until the chips finish falling.

The reason why the right reaction is the same in all cases, is because the cause was also the same in all cases;

• A man dies as all men do, because of Adam's original sin. Death came into the world because of sin.
• A nation falls because of corruption and destructive sin.
• A marriage ends because of selfish sin.

Sin: from Greek hamartano; "to miss the mark".

We saw previously in James 1, that sin is the result of giving in to temptation. Death is the natural result; death of a life, death of a marriage, death of a nation.

All decay, ruin, and death are a result of “missing the mark”, i.e. sin.
The Creator gave us a handbook user-guide which must be neglected for the production of resulting sin.

Therefore the answer in all cases is to turn toward the Creator and re-align the thinking to His values, His instruction, His perspective.
He calls this Repentance.

Repent: from Greek metanoeo; to think differently or afterward; i.e. reconsider, to morally feel compunction.

And even in the last moments, repentance can be made and accepted as preparation for entering the next phase, even though that phase is; divorced, or slavery, or physical death.

But to return to the way things were, is not the goal.
That time is passed.
There are new things coming.
And there is only metaphorically 2.6 minutes left in which to prepare.

“(for he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.)” II Corinthians 6:2

* * *
For many of us personally today, the van has not yet left the road though we are ever driving closer to that moment.
In the fun and activity of life, it is hard to take the time to contemplate where you are actually going.
But there are times, moments, when life gives you a slow spot such as right now, when you have the chance to take action in serious contemplation regarding that destination.

As you suddenly find yourself in the last few seconds of life, freefalling to your death, is probably not a convenient time to seriously seek out the God you always knew was there, but were too busy to get to know.

I find it very comforting to have experienced in my dream a confirming peace that I have a current and blame free relationship with my Creator now. So that in the moment of crisis I am not scrambling to double check potential problems that might result in eternal consequences.
After all, just how focused can you be when you are suddenly gripping your chest and things begin to go black in that last 2.6 minutes?

Preoccupation with false hope will only result in keeping you from facing reality until it is too late.

* * * * * * *

It is to be understood that a metaphorically applied dream is far simpler than the complications of reality.
I am not suggesting the abandonment of efforts to save the nation.
Only a re-prioritization of personal accountability to the Maker, and the recognition that the state of the nation is merely a bi-product of the individual condition applied collectively.

God has little concern for nations other than as part of his grand plan.
His greater concern is the individuals of those nations.

If He cannot win our hearts through blessing, He will resort to the suffering that comes by our own hands as he pulls away.

If He yet cannot win our hearts through suffering, He will abandon us to our own will as we demand.

This is why the Children of Israel suffer as they have,
And this is why America will suffer as it will.