Thursday, December 22, 2011

Survival


So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
 -- 1 Corinthians 13:13

Faith, hope, and love--these are the three most important ingredients to survival, to life.

Faith--Trust. A sense of truth. A foundation. Without some kind of trust, some kind of truth, we are tossed about like a ship in a storm, alone with no one to anchor us down. Faith is our anchor. It keeps us steady and provides a foundation, a lens through which to view everything else. Where is your trust? What do you know to be true?

Hope--A reason to go on. A hopeless man has no chance at survival because he has no reason to survive. Sure, he may go on from day to dragging day, but without hope the spirit quickly dies. Without a promise of something better--of rest and peace and joy and the restoration of all things, what is there? Life becomes the vain emptiness that the writer of Ecclesiastes talks about. Hope is that light at the end of the tunnel, the rainbow at the end of a rain storm. It is the promise of something better. What is your hope?

Love--Kindness. Compassion. Love is at the very heart of our life. It is what binds us together as one in this present moment. It is what gives life to the little things. Without it we turn selfishly inward and cut ourselves off from everyone else. Outside that flow of love, we stagnate and die. We need both to love and to be loved for life to flow through us. Who do you love? Who loves you?

Faith is our past, Hope is our future, and Love is our present. Without these three things, no man can truly live. With them, one can conquer almost anything.

No comments:

Post a Comment