by Reverend Jonathan Chaintrier from St James Anglican Church, Dandenong
We all have problems.
In one of his sketches, a French comedian reminds us that life begins with problems: “Look at what you start your life with. When you’re a kid, your life starts with exercises called… problems.”
The teacher goes into the classroom and says: “Open up your books, we’re going to start the problems.”
At the end of the day, the kid goes back home and his dad asks him: “What did you do at school today?”
The kid replies: “Problems. What about you at work?” The dad replies: “Problems…”.
One day, Joni Eareckson Tada had a big problem.
On a beautiful day spent with her sister near an estuary in the north east of the United States, she dived into shallow water and came back to the surface paralysed from head to foot.
Her life will never be the same.
After her accident, in desperation, Joni prayed and asked God to show her how to live in this situation.
She then met Christians who read the Bible with her and showed her that God sometimes allows what he hates to accomplish what he loves.
Joni then learnt to be thankful for small things.
She started to paint with a brush in her mouth, to write books and to create a group to help disabled persons and to share the Christian hope with them.
And this is Joni’s hope: “I still can hardly believe it. I, with shriveled, bent fingers, atrophied muscles, gnarled knees, and no feeling from the shoulders down, will one day have a new body, light, bright, and clothed in righteousness—powerful and dazzling.
“Can you imagine the hope this gives someone spinal-cord injured like me?
“Or someone who is cerebral palsied, brain-injured, or who has multiple sclerosis?
“Imagine the hope this gives someone who is manic-depressive.”
The Christian hope isn’t a religion.
The Christian hope is a person, Jesus Christ, who died and rose again to give a living hope to all who put their trust in him.
Do you have this hope?
And even if you’re not a Christian, wouldn’t you want Christianity to be true?
Wouldn’t you want to have the hope of the resurrection?
– Enquiries about the City of Greater Dandenong Interfaith Network: executive@interfaithnetwork.org.au or 8774 7662
