Pressure Washer Hope

When we arrived in Florida, our house had a screened-in pool area. While I had been a lifeguard (really) and worked around pools, I’d never lived in a house with a pool. It took a while before the pool area changed from clean and bright to green and dingy. It didn’t happen overnight. I didn’t do anything to make it dirty. I didn’t throw mold into the pool area, hoping that it would grow. No, not at all.

All I had to do was nothing.

Never having lived in a house with a pool, I asked a friend what to do. Their words, “Buy a pressure washer” took me totally by surprise. I’d never even seen a pressure washer. I had no idea what they were. How they worked. How to use one.

But I didn’t let that stop me. I went right out and bought this incredibly dangerous tool, second only to a chainsaw. Throwing caution to the wind, and throwing the instruction manual into the trash, I hooked it up and started blasting away all that dirt and mold.

The change was immediate and stunning. What had been green and dirty was now white and clean. This was amazing! What a terrific invention. Alfred Kärcher must have been a genius to invent such a great thing. Our pool looked completely transformed – for a little while.

Slowly and surely, the dirt somehow came from somewhere. The green mold must have crept in during the wee hours of the night. You never saw the clean turn immediately to dirty, or the white change to green. It was slow. It took time. The pool area seemed to go downhill all by itself. The longer I did nothing, the worse it got. The dirtier it got.

And all I had to do was nothing.

Hope is exactly like this. You can try bringing hope into your life, letting light into your life. It encourages our soul and lightens the burdens of the day. It’s great. You seem to feel the sun on your face even when it’s raining. But then, something happens. Slowly, your hope seems to be getting dimmer. Life seems to be darker. You’re more negative about everything.

And all you had to do was nothing.

Hope that we try to create will always fade. Hope that’s based on people will always grow dimmer and dimmer. That’s the way life is in this world. And it’s exactly the same with hope. There’s nothing that we can do to change it.

That is, unless we look for and find hope outside of us. Hope from beyond this life. The only lasting and life-changing hope is the hope that comes from the Lord. The eternal God and creator of the universe.

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to give you peace, not disaster, plans to give you hope and a future.

Jeremiah 29:11 EHV

The only way that we can get this hope is to receive it. It’s not something that we can generate on our own. We can’t cook it up in our kitchen of life. We won’t just find it along the walkway of life. It’s no accident that Jesus follows this up with His own promise.

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

Matthew 11:28-30

Isn't it time that we looked for hope from the one who made us? Loves us? Died for us?