What are your plans for the rest of the year? I’m thinking about putting together a very special travel opportunity for a select group of friends: I’m on the lookout for an island with tropical weather and clean beaches, with no airport or reliable internet coverage. All screens would be banned, but books would be welcomed. Conversations would come from table questions that would not invite or allow any exploration of the constant chaos that was polluting the home-based mainland that we had left behind us. And… the trip will have no return date prescribed. Are you interested in knowing more?

             In ancient Roman times, the Latin maxim memento mori meant, “Remember you must die.” A conquering general returning to Rome with the spoils of war – welcomed with laurel wreaths and showers of flower petals – would often have a slave stand behind him to whisper in his ear and warn him that all glory is temporary and hollow, as even generals die. For the great and powerful, memento mori was a warning and a call to humility. Enjoy your victory party; it won’t last…

            We’re living today with the demand to be constantly conscious on multiple layers. Parts of life are happening according to plan, while there are aspects that represent significant value that seem to be in decline. Your financial planner may be complimenting you on a rising retirement portfolio while you see progeny defined by behaviors that, if left unchecked, lead to sorrowful consequences. Reports from newly-launched military actions claim overwhelming success at the same time that your doctor wants a call-back appointment to review some recent test results. How are you feeling, right now?

            Our bodies require oxygen to function. Travel can move us from sea level to mountaintops; our ability to function can be impaired by the lack of oxygen at the higher levels. Beyond our physical realities, our emotional vitality is dependent on another invisible element that we need to function: hope is to our soul what oxygen is to our bodies. Waning hope makes us gasp; our potential capacity disappears as hope goes into decline.

            Hopelessness is a state of mind characterized by a profound sense of despair and the belief that one’s situation will not improve. It often involves a loss of faith in the possibility of positive change or a brighter future, leading to feelings of worthlessness and frustration. Gallup tracks that condition: only 59% of today’s American adults expect life to be better in five years, the lowest level in 20 years.

            What is hope? My definition: it’s the bridge between today’s experience and eternity’s promises. For those whose expectations die with them, there is no life-beyond-the-grave in their emotional framework, so hope is a non-starter. For Christians who have been baptized in biblical truth, hope is planted as a divine seed and, over a lifetime of maturation, grows to become their dominant mindset.

            Peter understood that: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade” (1 Peter 1:3-4).

            Look around your relational world; zero in on the faces around your circles. They are the windows into the souls of the people who are within your influence span. Are they manifesting hope, or gasping for air in an atmosphere that lacks lifegiving confidence in the best of tomorrows?

            Chuck Colson – once a Watergate felon, later a Kingdom leader – said it well: “Where is the hope? I meet millions who tell me that they feel demoralized by the decay around us. Where is the hope? The hope that each of us has is not in who governs us, or what laws are passed, or what great things that we do as a nation. Our hope is in the power of God working through the hearts of people, and that’s where our hope is in this country; that’s where our hope is in life.”

            Memento mori – “remember you must die” – is a certain prognosis. The best plan? “Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58).

— Bob Shank