Fear or Hope? The Most Important Choice You Make Every DaySample

This statement may sound unbelievable, but your crisis today can be a gift.

A gift?! In what way?

This crisis can be a gift because it can expose the truth. If nothing else, crisis makes the truth visible. What you've discovered about yourself and the people around you through this crisis has been inside all along. It took the crisis to expose the truth because the crisis exposes where we've put our hope. When your world shakes during a crisis, you turn to the source of your hope without thinking about it.

The writer of Hebrews warned us this would happen. In chapter 12, we read that what can be shaken will be shaken so that what cannot be shaken will remain.

A crisis shakes us, exposing our idols. What's an idol? I appreciate Timothy Keller's definition. "An idol is anything you look to for what only God can give." Have you seen that in your crisis? Have you seen yourself turning to things other than God for what only God can truly give?

I went through a major crisis in our church a few years ago. That crisis exposed my idolatrous relationship with control. I like being in control, and that 12-18-month period showed me how little control I had.

During that time, a friend who knew I was struggling sent me a quote from Barbara Brown Taylor. "We do not lose control of our lives. What we lose is the illusion that we were ever in control in the first place."

Ten years ago, I lost the illusion that I was in control. My son was born with a hole in his lung, and I couldn't hold him for the first five days he was alive. He was in the NICU (Neo-natal Intensive Care Unit) of the hospital. We were praying that his lung would reinflate so he could breathe on his own and get off of the machine. We prayed that he would eat enough that we could feed him. My daughter, his twin sister, ended up in the NICU too. In the middle of the night, while I was sleeping next to my son, the doctor woke me up at 12:15 and said, "Mr. Savage, your daughter's not breathing. She's got a fever. We're going to have to tube her, and we're not coming to ask your permission. We're just coming to tell you and inform you. We thought you'd want to know."

I felt completely out of control in those days. I learned that control was an idol and an illusion, and I was looking to it for what only God could give.

So, what illusions and idols is your current crisis exposing? In John 8, Jesus famously said, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." But the truth is, many of us would rather live in bondage than freedom.

We'd rather live in illusion than in truth. Before we can be free, we need to wrestle with what the truth reveals about our current situation.

I wish Jesus had kept on talking about the truth. If He had, He might have said, "The truth may set you free. It just may make you miserable at first."

You may discover things you don't want to see in this crisis. How we respond to crisis moments will likely be a choice between fear and hope.

So, each day, when you step in the shower and grab the knob to turn on the water, I hope you remember that a choice is before you. Yes, hot or cold. But, even more important, fear or hope! Like Joshua and Caleb, your choice can lead to freedom and a miraculous move of God.

It's been an honor to share with you over the last seven days. Click here for your complimentary copy of my Choosing Hope Action Plan, where I'll share five practical steps you can take to live with greater hope every day.