“For I know the plans I have for you . . . plans to give you hope and a future.”
- Jeremiah 29:11
Our friend Lisa had had a trying week recently, and by Friday found herself both exhausted and discouraged, so on her way home she decided to do something she rarely allowed herself to do, indulge in her favorite fast-food meal, the #8 at McDonald’s. Soon enough she was in the drive-thru lane, and with her permission I share how she described what happened next.
“After placing my order, I approached the pay window, where a young woman greeted me with a radiant smile. Her joy alone lifted my spirits. To my surprise, she excitedly revealed that the car ahead of me had paid for my meal, wishing me a great day. In that moment, I felt as if God was sending me a message. My doubts about hope melted away, and the heaviness I carried began to lift. . . The person in front of me didn’t know anything about my gender, race, faith, or political beliefs; they simply wanted to spread joy, and they succeeded!” It was in that moment it hit her, “There is hope!” she realized.
Hope! It has been said of human beings that we can live forty days without food, four days without water, and four minutes without air. But we cannot live four seconds without hope. Whether that is scientifically accurate I cannot say, but what I do know is that hope is essential to living. As Dostoevsky put it, “To live without hope is to cease to live.” Think about that in terms of the impact that kind person had on our friend Lisa in paying for her #8 order. That generous stranger not only bought her meal, but in doing so performed CPR, breathing new life into a discouraged soul.
These are troubling times we are living in, when hope seems in short supply, especially when we look for it in all the wrong places – the internet, social media, political parties, world leaders, and the like. Yet hope is alive and well as ever, just not “out there,” rather right in front of us, like that stranger in the car ahead in the drive-thru lane. God, of course, is our ultimate Hope, as He promised through his prophet Jeremiah, “For I know the plans I have for you . . . plans to give you hope and a future.” But since we are created in God’s image, so must we share that hope with each other. . . And would you like to guess what Lisa did for the stranger behind her in that drive-thru lane?