The Hospitable Leader DevotionalExemplo

Because we live in a sinful world, our good deeds and intentions don’t always yield the results we hope for in the end. As all of us are sure to have experienced, we can frequently put our best foot forward, trying to do what God has called us to do, and we face a wall of resistance, perhaps even evil. Sometimes this makes us question if we did the wrong thing because the result was wrong. However, because we face resistance doesn’t mean that we’re doing the wrong thing. As Terry Smith says in The Hospitable Leader, there is a “kind of suffering that comes when we try to do good.”

Peter’s letter, which we read a portion of today, ratifies the idea of this kind of suffering. In today’s passage, he is encouraging the church in how they are to receive the blessing of God. One of the main emphases of Peter is that, when doing the work of God, we will experience suffering and evil. He even says that we can suffer for doing the right thing (verse 14). But because we are doing the work of God, we are “blessed” for taking a part in his mission. Thus, we cannot necessarily take suffering as a sign of failure, and sometimes it is even a sign that we’re doing the right thing. Anything good comes with suffering, because the evil in the world doesn’t want the good to prevail.

All of this, however, does not prevent us from feeling the potential depression and weight of resistance that comes against us. Yes, we may be in God’s will, but what does that do for me now? How am I supposed to feel? The reality is that we do have something to hold on to: hope. Now, hope may seem future-oriented, and therefore not something that can support us today, but the exact opposite is true. Certainly hope is oriented toward the future, in that we’re looking forward to the full blessing of God that comes through the redemption of the world. But hope changes us today, right now, as we engage it. It’s been shown that a mental focus on the good things that we expect to come, or an anticipation of these good things, bathes our minds in positive emotions and highly effects our current capacity. Thus, when we anticipate and hope for the good things (even amidst the bad!), we can push forward in strength.

This is why Christians can be so hopeful even amidst the struggles we face, because we have assurance of the thing we hope for—the coming of Christ. And when that hope comes to fruition, all justice will prevail and things will be made right. But the hope doesn’t just affect the future, it comforts and helps us now, and that’s why we are blessed even while we await the full blessing of eternity.