The Substance Of Things Hoped For

My wife is a realist. She looks at a person's behavior, past and present, and sums the person up according to his deeds. One will find very little wiggle room once her determinations have been made and her mind has been set.

Or let's put it this way--If a person has it in mind to redeem himself in her esteem, he will find it an uphill struggle. Straight uphill. I mean the kind of hill that requires climbing gear.

I remember asking her, during one lively discussion of personal philosophies, whether she had ever heard of grace. She answered in such a way as to leave no doubt as to where I might store that notion.

Grace for her, as for many people indeed, is something that is earned, not simply given without justifiable cause.

It's funny. Though Sant Louis is a better Christian than I, more outgoing, more involved, kinder, friendlier, cleaner, she knows at the same time almost nothing of the doctrinal basics.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God. (Eph 2:8)

Why then God is surely a fool, she might say, but that doesn't mean you have to be one too.

But I am. I am.

If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise (1 Cor 3:18).

Well, I poke fun at my wife, and I exaggerate (somewhat); and yet honestly I begin to wonder, after having been a fool for so long, having personally explored so many aspects of foolishness, of both the world and of God, whether maybe she is right after all. Maybe people are much simpler than I make them out to be.

You see, I have tended to see people more in the light of potential than in the light of day. I have believed that there is a pristine goodness into which they may by and by proceed, given patience, faith, encouragement, grace.

I have not yet seen this happen. Why, therefore, do I persist in what may be no more than delusion?

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Heb 11:1-2

That's why. It is poetry, it is hope, it is assurance, it is ideal--it is the very sustenance of fools like me.