(by Lane Bowman)

Mauled at Mackey, was the headline for today's IDS newspaper coverage of the IU vs. Purdue men's basketball game in West Lafayette. While it's no surprise the Hoosier's lost this battle, even with Purdue's star forward, Robbie Hummel, out with an injury, it's still pretty disappointing. My friend put it this way, "It's sad that the basketball team has come to how I feel about football season: the only thing that matters is if we can beat Purdue." With that dream crushed, there's not much else to look forward to. The only thing left is to hope for a better basketball season next year.  

It's likely that you understand this attitude about IU basketball, especially if you're a Cubs fan or an enthusiast for anything else that seems doomed to fail. Why? Because even if you're not a sports fanatic or political party supporter, you live life here on this earth. And there are many things that disappoint us, things we hoped for but didn't get, plans we had that went awry. But knowing that God is the sovereign Lord of all things, and purposes all things for the good of those who love Him, gives us real hope—though all our earthly hopes fail.

Recently, I read a biography on the life of John Calvin—a pastor and reformer who faced persistent illness throughout his life. He didn't eat much because of his condition, sometimes spent weeks or months with severe symptoms, and yet, he labored diligently through it all. We have volumes and volumes of Bible commentaries, masses of written letters—and that's not to mention the vast civil, political, and religious reforms he led throughout the town of his residence, Geneva, because... why? He had a vibrant, satisfying life here and now? Nope. He writes at one point that he would rather die a hundred deaths than face the day. So what kept this man, whose earthly life was filled with trouble, (and I've mentioned only the least of it), so productive and fruitful in this life?  

It was the hope of heaven. After summarizing our vain love and longing for this world, he writes:

To counter this evil the Lord instructs his followers in the vanity of the present life by continual proof of its miseries. Therefore, that they may not promise themselves a deep and secure peace in it, he permits them often to be troubled and plagued either with wars or tumults, or robberies, or other injuries. That they may not pant with too great eagerness after fleeting and transient riches, or repose in those which they possess, he sometimes by exile, sometimes by barrenness of the earth, sometimes by fire, sometimes by other means, reduces them to poverty, or at least confines them to a moderate station. That they may not too complacently take delight in the goods of marriage, he either causes them to be troubled by the depravity of their wives or humbles them by evil offspring, or afflicts them with bereavement. But if, in all these matters, he is more indulgent toward them, yet, that they may not either be puffed up with vainglory or exult in self-assurance, he sets before their eyes, through diseases and perils, how unstable and fleeting are all the goods that are subject to mortality.   

Then only do we rightly advance by the discipline of the cross, when we learn that this life, judged in itself, is troubled, turbulent, unhappy in countless ways, and in no respect clearly happy... For this we must believe: that the mind is never seriously aroused to desire and ponder the life to come unless it be previously imbued with contempt for the present life.1

Our hope is not here; it is in heaven. We will only find trouble from this life, that we might look to the one to come. After all, "who hopes for what he sees?"

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1, John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, edited by John T. McNeill, pages 712-713