Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said "We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope." The fact that we can have a sense of hope, that we can look for something higher and better, that we have thirst and desire implies that there is satisfaction available. This is our imago dei at work. We were created by God and for Him which makes Him our highest good and our deepest satisfaction. In this life under the sun we can have a taste and a glimpse of the satisfaction that is His goodness, but it is inevitably mixed with the disappointments, frustrations and setbacks of the broken created order. Prejudice, selfish ambition, partiality, even hatred will continue until the day that Christ makes all things new. Until that day, we will never experience the complete satisfaction for which we were intended.
Peter wrote to people who were displaced from their homes because of prejudice. There was no denying that it was a significant hardship. That is why he challenged them to persevere with the eyes of their minds fixed on the eternal hope that was promised. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials (1 Peter 1:6). The apostle emphasizes the temporary nature of our adversities. This, too, shall pass! If our confidence is in Christ, then our inheritance is in Christ - not a man-made utopia - and the current adversities will result in the realization of the promises made by the infinite, benevolent Creator/Redeemer. We shall see Him, we shall be like Him, all will be made new, and every tear will be wiped away. Only then will we realize the complete satisfaction that God designed and desires for us.
As followers of Christ, we seek to bring comfort to the suffering and remedy to the broken with bold compassion. We must do justly and love mercy in the outflow of our humble walk with God for that is what His Son did, and we follow Him. So let us walk the path of sacrifice, let us invest ourselves in the lives of those who feel the blunt end of their brokenness and that of others. Through all this, as sojourners and exiles, we must remember that complete satisfaction is not possible under the sun. We can only have a foretaste that creates in us a longing for the full and complete rest for our embodied souls.
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