I often sing old hymns when I am working around the farm (I love old hymns). Singing helps me to keep from getting frustrated or discouraged as I work, when things aren’t going well. Singing also tends to keep me in an overall better mood.
One day recently as I was walking through the chicken houses, I was singing, “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness.” After singing this, God put a question in my head. He asked, “Is it?” I don’t know that the question even registered the first time. I seem to remember that I just kept on singing. Once again, I felt God ask, “Is it?” Is my hope built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness? I thought about the question as I walked, picking up eggs.
I ask myself, what would make me hopeless? If I lost my family, that would seem pretty hopeless. If I lost my job, or worse yet, failed at my job, that could make me feel hopeless. Falling as a husband, or as a provider, or as a father could cause me to feel hopeless. It seems that my hope is not placed on the solid rock, but instead my hope resides with my performance, or “the sinking sand” that the song references.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I foolishly rely on myself for much of my hope. My hope for my marriage relies on me being a good husband, but I have failed my wife many times. My hope for my children relies on me being a good and loving teacher. So that I will be able to teach them about being good and loving. However I am not a good and loving teacher, I am a selfish and sinful man. How can I teach something I do not know how to do? Much of my hope relies on me being successful at work, but I have failed many times at work. I have convinced myself that success will give my life hope, and worth, and value. I have deceived myself by thinking that I am an acceptable place for my hope. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”
I then thought back to the song that I was singing, “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness.” The song encouraged and excited me. I know where my hope belongs. I then thought of the chorus of that song, “On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.” I have great reason for hope, and joy, and peace because of my glorious savior! I can have peace, because my hope, my whole world does not rely on me! The pressure is off! I can teach my children about the good and loving teacher because I know the good and loving teacher. My work is an avenue for me to praise and worship my savior. Which makes work joyful and fun, because praise and worship is joyful and fun. I am free to love my wife, and kids, and church, and neighbor, and enemy, because Jesus first love me.