Hope & Obsession

These days there is a lot of talk about hope especially in politics. Personally, I don’t have much faith in the political hope some people are touting.

Hope is a very important emotion. Without faith it is impossible to please God. Faith is the essence of things hoped for. Ted Dekker in his book, “The Slumber of Christianity” suggests that hope the greatest emotion. I think, 1 Cor. 13:13 would disagree by because it lists faith, hope, and love and then saying the greatest of these is love. However, 1 Cor. 13 does show the immense importance of hope.

According to The American Heritage Dictionary, hope is: (1) to wish for something with expectation of its fulfillment (2) to look forward to something with confidence or expectation (3) to expect and desire. Hope is a strong emotion or desire. It can even become an obsession.

Obsession is: a persistent preoccupation with a somewhat unreasonable idea or feeling.

The human family tends toward being obsessed with something. We don’t necessarily like that fact. We would like to believe we strictly follow logic and are above obsession. But we are made in God’s image and He is obsessed. God is obsessed with you and me. He went to unreasonable lengths to draw us to himself. He chases us down even when we rebel against him. He forgives us over and over again. When you look at it logically, it is unreasonable how much he loves us.

So if we are to be obsessed, what should we be obsessed with? Ted Dekker believes we should be obsessed with the Kingdom of Heaven.

Matt 13:44, “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all that he had and bought that field.” The man in this parable was obsessed with this treasure. He sold everything he had to obtain this field and it’s hidden treasure. Was this a reasonable thing to do? I guess it depends on the treasure that was hidden in this field.

What if this treasure was mostly about some way off future hope that showed very little financial benefit over the next 100 years? What if you lost out on opportunity after opportunity because you were sitting on this field and unable to cash in on this treasure?

Our treasure is in heaven and it is well worth anything we can invest while on this earth. Our hope is in heaven and in the unreasonable idea that God loved us enough to send His Son to the cross in our place. We should be obsessed with heaven. Are we?