I was driving home from a time of worship at our local MHA at Norwood in Ipswich this afternoon singing along to my favourite Worship Song of the moment – Living Hope by Phil Wickham. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-1fwZtKJSM
It opens with the words
How great the chasm that lay between us, How high the mountain I could not climb
In desperation, I turned to heaven
And spoke your name into the night
Then through the darkness
Your loving kindness
Tore through the shadows of my soul
The work is finished, the end is written
Jesus Christ, my living hope
Phil Wickham describes why he wrote those words, saying, “God has rescued us from a place we could not have rescued ourselves. Our future was death, but Jesus came in and brought life – a living hope – into our souls and our lives.”
We all have those mountains we struggle to climb, and those things that make us feel separate from God. For some the mountains are insurmountable, quite literally, and the chasm seems impossible to cross, and we may turn in desperation, even in anger to God.
Why is this happening to me? Is this what you want for me? How can I possibly climb that mountain or cross that divide?
It’s ok to be angry. It’s ok to ask those questions.
Jesus is our living hope. He crossed the greatest divide from death to life. Our bodies may be weak, and our strength failing, but we have one in whose strength we are powerful, and who can bring hope where there is despair, and peace where there is pain. One whose loving kindness brings light into our darkest places.
May you know that Jesus Christ our Living Hope.