{"id":1974,"date":"2022-09-16T08:37:58","date_gmt":"2022-09-16T12:37:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=1974"},"modified":"2022-09-16T08:38:35","modified_gmt":"2022-09-16T12:38:35","slug":"the-focus-of-our-deepest-hopes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2022\/09\/16\/the-focus-of-our-deepest-hopes\/","title":{"rendered":"The Focus of Our Deepest Hopes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, <\/em>click here<\/a>.
.
In J.R.R. Tolkien\u2019s Lord of the Rings <\/em>trilogy, the Dark Lord Sauron pours all of his power into a mere ring.
 
When the ring is dissolved in the volcanic fires of Mt. Doom, Sauron\u2019s seemingly invincible power vanishes, too.
 
This was too much for one of Tolkien\u2019s readers, a woman named Rhona Beare.  Not long after the trilogy was published in 1954, Ms. Beare wrote Tolkien and complained that it seemed incredible to her that the eradication of such a tiny thing should cause Sauron\u2019s demise.  Tolkien replied:
 
\u201cThe Ring of Sauron is only one of the various mythical treatments of the placing of one\u2019s life, or power, in some external object, which is thus exposed to capture or destruction with disastrous results to oneself.\u201d
 
To put that in plain English, most people tend to invest their hopes and dreams in something beyond themselves. 
 
And if anything should happen to that something, their entire life may suddenly collapse.
 
Author Tim Keller notes: \u201cIt is one thing to love somebody and get a lot of joy out of the relationship.  But if that person breaks up with you and you want to kill yourself, it means you have given that person too much glory, too much weight in your life.  You may have said in your heart, \u2018If that person loves me, then I know I am somebody.\u2019  But if that person then takes the relationship away, you collapse and melt down because you have ascribed more glory and honor to him or her than to God.\u201d
 
What if parents build their hopes and dreams around their children, but one of those kids decides to walk away from the family?  What if an entrepreneur invests all of his energy and resources into a can\u2019t-miss business opportunity \u2013 betting that this is how he will make his mark \u2013 and it crumbles like a house of cards?
 
The first of the Ten Commandments seems extreme: \u201cYou shall have no other gods before me\u201d (Exodus 20:3).
 
Is God that insecure?  Is God so neurotic that he can\u2019t abide rivals of any kind?
 
It\u2019s more accurate to say that God knows he is the only one who can handle the overwhelming burden of sustaining our lives with hope and meaning.  God is the only one who can be the focus of our deepest expectations and not let us down.
 
If you find yourself thinking\u2026 
 
I\u2019ll only be happy if I get that job.<\/em>
I\u2019ll feel miserable this weekend if my favorite team loses again.<\/em>
If she doesn\u2019t apologize, I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m going to do.<\/em>
 
\u2026it\u2019s time to wonder if you have risked your wellbeing with something pitifully smaller than God, and assigned to that relationship or dream way more power than it deserves.
 
If we pour our hopes into anything that is Not-God, we can be sure there will be a meltdown sometime in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here..In J.R.R. Tolkien\u2019s Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Dark Lord Sauron pours all of his power into a mere ring. When the ring is dissolved in the volcanic fires of Mt. Doom, Sauron\u2019s seemingly invincible power vanishes, too. This was too much for one of Tolkien\u2019s readers, a woman named Rhona Beare.  Not… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1975,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[18,502],"class_list":["post-1974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-hope","tag-identity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1974"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1977,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1974\/revisions\/1977"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}