Excerpts from
Hoping for Something Better: Refusing to Settle for Life as Usual
By Nancy Guthrie
Have You Settled for Something Less?
Somehow making a move across the country gave me the opportunity to make a fresh start. And while I had always thought Bible studies were nice for people who did them—people who had the time for them—honestly, I didn’t think I needed one. After all, I had grown up in church and minored in Bible in college, so I thought I pretty much knew the Bible.
But I was desperate to hear God speak into my falling-apart-at-the-seams life, so I visited a weekly intensive Bible study soon after we arrived in Nashville. I remember that first week the lecturer was talking about the woman in the Gospels who had been hemorrhaging blood for twelve years. The speaker said, “The life was literally draining out of her.” I thought, “That’s me! I feel like the life is draining out of me.” She talked about how the woman reached out to touch Jesus, telling him that she needed a miracle. The lecturer asked if anyone there needed a miracle. I wanted to raise my hand or stand up and wave.
I knew I needed nothing less than a miracle to break through the years of stony silence between God and me, the pile-up of unconfessed sin, the layers of indifference, the well-rehearsed facade of spirituality I had perfected.
I was tired of it. I wanted something real. I wanted it badly enough that I was willing to make a commitment to the weekly study with its daily questions, which seemed like a huge commitment and sacrifice at the time. For me, making that commitment was my way of saying to God, “Knowing you is more important than being available to my clients on Wednesday mornings, more important than maintaining my ‘I already know it all’ image, more important than just about anything else.”
I was tired of feeling like a hypocrite.
Can you relate? Do you find yourself feeling like a hypocrite at times—going through all the motions of religion and yet finding that there is a void, a sense of deadness toward God, distance from God? Have you settled for something less than a genuine love relationship with Jesus? Do you want something better—a relationship that is real, a faith that is relevant?
Obsessed with Lesser Things
To tell you the truth, I’ve spent much more energy running toward the refrigerator than on a racetrack in my life. If I’m painfully and awkwardly honest with you, I have to admit that I am obsessed with food. I love breakfast. I love lunch. I love dinner. I love to have a snack at about ten and to eat a few tortilla chips while I’m fixing dinner. And what is the point of a day that doesn’t end with a bowl of ice cream?
But my love affair with food has not served me well. It has made me mostly miserable—either miserable from depriving myself to try to lose weight and keep it off or miserable because I’m not depriving myself and watching my weight creep up and my clothes get tighter.
I’m embarrassed when I realize that while most people in the world are trying to figure out how to get enough food to eat to survive, here I am struggling to figure out how to eat less in the abundance that surrounds me. Something is way out of whack.
A while ago I got sick of myself—not just sick of my reflection in the mirror that made me want to hide, but sick of having my thoughts and emotions dominated by food. I don’t want food and my weight to be this important, this significant in my life. It just isn’t an investment worthy of so much energy. So I have been on a journey to put food and weight management in its proper place in my life. I don’t want to be obsessed with it. I don’t want it to consume so much of my energy and emotion.
Would I love to be thin? Of course. What woman doesn’t? But I don’t want that desire to be what drives me. And I don’t want the absence of thinness to have the power to destroy me.
I want something else—someone else—to take center stage in my thoughts and emotions. I want a different obsession, a better obsession. I want Jesus to be the center of my life, the focus of my thoughts, the object of my passion, the definer of my identity, the source of my significance, the supplier of my happiness, my definition of beauty. I want Jesus to satisfy my appetites and longings. Not food. Not achieving and maintaining a particular number on the scales or a certain clothing size.
Disappointment: Life as Usual
A sense of disappointment is a familiar feeling for most of us. There have been so many things that haven’t lived up to their promise, someone else’s sales job, or our own inflated, if not idealistic, expectations. We extended ourselves for the new house only to find that we can’t enjoy it because of all the little things that are not quite right. We longed for years to be married or to become parents only to find that it is not always as idyllic as we imagined it would be. With each career goal we accomplish, we find out that there is always a downside to the dream and another hurdle to overcome.
In fact, because we’ve been so often disappointed, we’ve trained ourselves not to hope for so much, not to expect too much anymore. We’d rather not build ourselves up for what we see as an inevitable letdown. So we’ve learned to live expecting very little from other people, from ourselves, from life, even from God.
It’s this disappointment with God, or with our experience or understanding of God, that creates real inner conflict. It seems so terribly unspiritual to admit that the Christian life, as we’ve experienced it so far, does not seem to really be what Jesus meant by “abundant life.” It often feels as if we’ve missed it somehow, that everybody else must be experiencing something we can’t seem to achieve, but we don’t want to admit it to ourselves or anyone else.
We find ourselves living with a nagging hope for something better. We want something better than the “churchianity” of our parents and grandparents, something better than the vague and uncertain spirituality of our neighbors, something better than guilt-induced, holier-than-thou morality, something better than here-and-now, health-and-wealth promises, something more than going-through-the-motions religiosity or the latest-fad religious experience. We are hoping for something authentic—something worth opening our hearts to and filling our minds with and giving our lives for.
We don’t have to spend our whole lives on an endless and unsatisfying search. There really is something better that is within our grasp. There is something better than living life with a merely sentimental, superficial spirituality. There is something better than going through life with a debilitating fear of death. Better than becoming bored and burdened by meaningless religious ritual, better than feeling like an unwelcome outsider or an unworthy hypocrite, better than being bound by shame and regret. There is something better that makes problems worth persevering through, something that makes heaven worth waiting for, something worth running toward and dreaming of.
Dreaming of Something Better
About eight years ago I was on my way to Colorado Springs for a business conference. My friends Dan and Sue Johnson were going to the same conference and were on my flight. I rode with them to the hotel, and on that little trip we had a very meaningful and memorable conversation.
For some reason we were talking about our dreams—not the dreams we have when we’re asleep, but the dreams we nurture deep inside. And that day I dared to share with them the dream inside me that I had not shared with anyone up to that point. Honestly I was embarrassed to say it out loud because I felt it was too lofty and unrealistic, too far from a possibility. It was as if saying it out loud might completely crush it.
For six years I had been attending the Bible Study class that Sue taught on a weekly basis, and each week it was as if the lesson was just for me. It challenged me and changed me, and as I looked around I saw other women being changed through the power of the Word too. That day in Colorado I told Dan and Sue that I couldn’t imagine doing anything more significant with my life than doing what Sue was doing—I told them that I had a dream to teach the Bible. But honestly I couldn’t imagine that I would ever have the understanding or the ability or the credibility to do it.
And while the route God has taken me on in bringing this dream to reality is not what I expected or necessarily would have wanted, when I get to stand up in front of a group of people and open up the Scriptures, it is so much fun and so fulfilling to me, I almost have to pinch myself.
I tell you about this dream because I want to get you thinking about what your dreams are. I wonder what you want out of this life, what you want to accomplish, who you want to become. I wonder what dreams of yours seem lofty and unrealistic and unreachable. And I wonder if so far you have settled for your own dreams—dreams that are earthbound and self-centered and simpleminded, dreams that settle for the best this world has to offer rather than the ones that reach beyond for something more solid and more significant.
Persevering for Something Better
Will you determine to keep on believing, no matter what?
I talk to and correspond with many people who are facing sorrow and difficulty—and some of it I can barely fathom. I must admit that sometimes it is pretty hard to look in the face a person who is hurting deeply and tell her that she should keep on believing, that she should keep on entrusting her life to God even though he has allowed so much suffering into her life.
Recently I met a woman whose body is being ravaged by ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) even as she endures the taunts of a cruel husband and the despair of a daughter who has begun cutting herself. I encouraged her to keep trusting God with her suffering, to keep believing that he will use it for something good, knowing even as I said the words that they might sound simplistic in the face of such pain. But deep in my soul I know it is true, and it is not at all simplistic. It is the most significant truth in the universe, so I said it. And I say it to you today too:
Keep on believing . . . because of Christ’s love for you expressed on the cross, which makes it possible for you to draw near to God in the darkest times of your life.
Keep on believing . . . because rejection of Christ results in certain—and terrifying—judgment.
Keep on believing . . . because you will be rewarded for your faith in him, and it will be worth everything it costs you.
Keep on believing . . . because as a child of God, it is just who you are.
James 1:12 says, “Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.”
Jesus calls us to persevere as we face problems and persecution, and he will be waiting for us on the other side. So keep on believing. It will be worth it. He will be worth it.
Jesus was not only fully divine. In a holy mystery we can’t completely comprehend or explain, Jesus was at once fully divine and fully human. In Hebrews 2, we see Jesus in his humanity, lowering himself, getting involved, sharing with us, living with us, becoming one of us.
Jews had difficulty with the whole concept of a God who would lower himself to suffer. It just didn’t seem very godlike to them. One of Islam’s greatest criticisms of Christianity is that it is blasphemous to suggest that God would actually dirty himself by living among sinful humans; therefore, many Muslims reason that Jesus could not have been God.
So when the writer to the Hebrews says, “It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering,” it means that what God did through Jesus was consistent with His character. He is challenging the conventional parameters for what is godlike. It is as if he points to the cross and says, “This is not shameful. This is beautiful. It is appropriate and consistent with who God is.”
Something Better: Rest
God does not intend for us to wear ourselves out with meaningless religious activity, filling ourselves with theological knowledge, working for him but never knowing what it is to enjoy knowing him and being known by him. Neither does he intend for us to go through this life on our own, unaware of him or estranged from him.
There is something better. And it is not working harder or trying harder. It doesn’t require more sacrifice on our part. All it requires is that we receive what he wants to give to us—that we enter into what he has prepared for us.
God is offering us something better . . . and that something better is rest. Real rest. Rest from the weariness of feeling that we can never measure up to God’s standards, rest from trying to be good enough or do enough to earn God’s favor. The something better is resting in what Christ has done for us, resting in knowing him and being known by him.
God is holding out to you the gift of rest, the kind of rest that only he can provide.
Something Better: Confidence and Courage
A couple of years ago I spoke at a women’s retreat outside Dallas. I had flight problems, so I missed the morning sessions. When I got there, all the women were out enjoying the camp for the afternoon, including the zip line. Do you know what that is? The participant climbs a tower about five stories high and hooks herself on. Then she steps off the tower and flies through the air for the length of about three football fields while hanging on to this zip line, strapped in with a series of harnesses and hooks.
Well, I wanted to enter into what these women were doing and just have fun with them, so I didn’t want to say, “No, I’m too chicken to do the zip line.” So I got in line with them and said, “Sure I’ll do it!” But honestly, I wasn’t sure I could.
When I finally made my way up the tower and onto the ledge, I probably would have turned around and said, “Forget it” if there hadn’t been a long line of people on the stairs behind me. I didn’t want to make a total fool of myself. So I sat down on the ledge, and with my heart pounding, full of fear, I pushed off—screaming. But my scream of fear lasted only a moment, giving way to shrieks of laughter. It was so much fun, I couldn’t wait to do it again!
Sitting on that ledge, I had to decide whether or not I believed the ropes and belts and clips would hold me and carry me safely to the end of the line. I had seen them hold other women. I chose to believe they would hold me too. So I took a deep breath and pushed off.
That is what I want to invite you to do if you have never done it—take a deep breath and push off. And if you have only done it one time—the time you look back on as the time you trusted Christ to save you, I want to invite you to grab on to him again in a new and perhaps deeper way. Trust him with everything you are and everything you have and everyone you love. You can trust that the promises of God are strong and sure enough to hold you.
Trusting in God’s promises is the thrill of a lifetime and evidence that the faith you claim is for real. Let your confidence in his promises give you the courage to grab on to the hope he offers. He will not let you fall.
Something Better: Heaven
When hard things come (and they will) and we wonder what to do, we make it our goal to please him in how we respond. When our husband tells us he no longer wants to be married and wants a divorce, we throw ourselves into pleasing God. When we feel the sting of undeserved criticism, the fearfulness of being alone, the weight of overwhelming responsibility, or perhaps the aimlessness of lack of purpose or significance, we make it our aim to please him. That is what we do while we wait.
And it will be worth it. He will be worth everything your sacrificial obedience has cost you and will cost you.
Hope allows us to see beyond the darkness as we fix our eyes on what we cannot see. Real hope is not about believing for the best in this world. Real hope causes us to long for another world. That is what hope is meant to do—to give us a deep, unquenchable longing for heaven.
So, what are you waiting for? What keeps you getting up in the morning? What drives you? What are you looking forward to?
I hope it will be worth it. I do.
But I also know that everything good in this life—the best things in this life—are just a taste of what we will experience in a richer and fuller way in heaven.
So many of us have faced so much disappointment here, haven’t we? But faith tells us that we can be confident of what we can’t see. We can rest in knowing that heaven will not disappoint us as life does. Jesus will be the joy of heaven, and heaven will be worth all the waiting.
“Compared to what is coming, living conditions around here seem like a stopover in an unfurnished shack, and we’re tired of it! We’ve been given a glimpse of the real thing, our true home, our resurrection bodies! The Spirit of God whets our appetite by giving us a taste of what’s ahead. He puts a little of heaven in our hearts so that we’ll never settle for less.” (2 Corinthians 5:4-5, The Message)
Something Better: Jesus
Will you walk out on this plank with me and stake your life on the significance and sufficiency and superiority of Jesus?
Perhaps the plank for you is making a first-time commitment to Jesus. Walking out on a plank for you would mean coming to Jesus as you are and telling him that you need him and want him in your life—that you turn away from the way you’ve been living because now you see that his way is better, that he is better.
Perhaps the plank for you requires that you take a step further in your commitment to him—perhaps going public with him, giving up something for him, or letting go of something in this world so that you can grab on to Jesus and never let go. Won’t you grab hold of something better? Someone better?
Because Jesus is better.
He’s really better.
Jesus is the something better we’ve been hoping for all along.
Excerpts are from
Hoping for Something Better: Refusing to Settle for Life as Usual
By Nancy Guthrie
Available July 2007 from Tyndale House Publishers
ISBN-10: 1-4143-1307-1
Hardcover, $14.99, 192 pages
Reprint permission and interviews available via McClure Muntsinger Public Relations
Contact Pamela McClure, 615.595.8321, pamela@mmpublicrelations.com