The Dance of Hope

Hope is the dance for the future!

My husband and have different ‘ways of going’ at the gym. He starts off quickly on the walking track and gradually slows down during his laps. I start off slowly and by the end of my time am walking more briskly. I do my walking continually while he breaks his up resting briefly between the sets of laps completed. But at the end of the day and more importantly, of the month and the year, does it really matter? I suspect not. We are each fulfilling in our own way and at our own speed what is required for us. What really matters is that we are consistent with what we are doing.

And what keeps us coming back to the gym, day after day, week after week, and month after month, is hope ~ the hope that by doing this we will remain healthy for the months and years ahead. It is hope for the future! Not unlike the hare in Aesop’s fable about the tortoise and the hare, where the hare took time off from what should have been his focus, and ended up losing the race. Only in this case, the race we are running is the race to continued mobility and health. What we do today makes a difference for our tomorrows.

Different learning styles have been used in our school classrooms for over 50 years, and long before that time by those’ born’ teachers out there. They knew that what made sense to some children didn’t make sense to all, and that trying to force them all into the same mold wasn’t going to work. Students, once they have mastered the rudiments of reading, writing, & arithmetic, are encouraged to follow whatever path of learning speaks to them.

But how often is our daily life are we expected, even forced into following the path that has worked for someone else? We are expected to keep the outside of our houses looking like a carbon copy of the one next door or down the street. We are expected to have at least one, if not more, vehicles in our driveways, ..which are expected to be paved! We are expected to follow the scores of whatever seasonal sports team is playing. Those who choose to walk a different path are often looked at not a little askance.

It simply makes no sense that we are expected in church land to all move at the same rate, to say or sing the same things, to have identical needs on our separate journeys to spiritual maturity. Just as I don’t insist that my husband has to do all his laps without a break, so to should the church not insist that everyone worship at the same time or in the same way. This, to me, is the major challenge the church has to face - made more difficult by the years of insisting that everyone follow an identical path.

“In hope we are saved, yet hope is not hope if its object is seen” (Romans 8:24).

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