ALL My Hope

I’m not musical (that’s a freaking understatement), but I can appreciate music. My sister Julie is incredibly gifted…yours truly, not so much. No matter (so I tell myself). Hillsong, Anchor, my recent jam. It spears my heart.

“Your Name is higher, your Name is greater, ALL my hope is in you.” A variation of that will be my next tattoo, that’s how strong it resonates in my soul. Why?

What if “all my hope is in you” were the practical theology with which I lived my life? Emphasis on the ALL. Sure, I can sing that Christ is the “anchor of my soul,” and somehow I’d provide a faint echo of Hebrews 6. But what about ALL my hope…is that true?

Is ALL my hope in Christ?

I confess, in my life, it isn’t.

But, I think, it has to be.

Because there is hope in the promise of the Cross. But until that semblance of hope becomes ALL the hope you will know, it isn’t really hope…it’s just insurance. Hope isn’t insurance. Hope isn’t a backup plan. Hope isn’t Allstate.

Netflix got it right — it’s “All or Nothing.” Either ALL my hope is in Christ or it doesn’t matter. Because what Christ accomplished either matters to the utmost, or is just another side note in historical textbooks.

The point is this: is it ALL? Think about it from a poker perspective…am I holding anything back? Am I playing all my chips holding a stack back?

I’ve pretty much doubled down on this Jesus thing. But any logician worth his/her salt will show you that you have to be true to your argument. In mine, it’s either ALL or NAUGHT. There is no in-between.

In Hebrews 6, we remember Genesis 15, when the Almighty God walked among the pieces, signifying the severity and ultimate promise of His covenant — that if God Himself failed in his promise He Himself would be killed afterwards — He (God) cemented the final idea that hope will not disappoint.

So it has to be ALL my hope. It can’t be some of my effort, my talent, my smallish-offensive-line-touchdown-drive push into the endzone. If that were it, it wouldn’t be hope, it would be drive…work ethic…grit…desire.

My hope points not to an emotion, or a gumption, or a feeling on a particular day. My hope points to a man, a living hope, a resurrection. A hope that never, eternally, disappoints.

Jesus.

That’s the jam. That’s where ALL hope has either already died…or lives eternally.

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