A Hope and Future?

If you have been around church in America at all you have heard the scripture in Jer. chapter 29 verse 11 that God has purpose at a hope for you. I grew up hearing that at least once a week. Hope is something we all need. Life is hard, and you need something to help you keep going. With everything that is good, we can miss the point, and it seems we can take good things and make them harmful to us. Isn't that so frustrating? Our hearts are so confusing. In America, we adapt these verses into what we think it means to have the American dream, and become really miss led, and when its seems to fall short, we fall away. I've been guilty of this in the past, and this is very revealing about what we really care about. What does God actually mean by a hope and a future? What is blessing, are all questions we need to ask. In recent months, I've thought the hope and a future, or blessing, was a job, a significant thing to do, but it's neither. I've found out that the hope and a future is my relationship with God. You know, it might happen, I may get a job and something to do, but who cares. I really have it all right now. The other hope and a future robs you of now...today....the love you can share with people around you...God's voice now....and peace that is beyond you. C.S Lewis has some interesting Dialog with in the book the Screw Tape Letters. There are two demons talking to one another about the tricks they can pull on the mortals. In this conversation they talk about how in thinking about tomorrow we can have them wasting today and render them unfruitful. It is so true. The hope and a future is about God's love to you and relationship that he has to bless you. The other stuff isn't even what its about. God really knows that this is what makes us truly significant. For example, in the Gospel there is a man that is asked to leave his money to have eternal life and he goes away sad. The interesting thing I recently learned about the account is that his name isn't recorded because its said that the writer was drawing the analogy that he had no identity apart from his stuff. How sad! This is a man that took the hope and future the wrong way. He was saying he wanted to follow God, and we actually found out that he really didn't want God. What defines you? What is really your hope and a future? Is it Jesus, or his goods? The latter with always leave you needing more.