Is your hope focused on this life only?  Don’t feel bad if it is, as that is how our entire being experiences reality: our heart knows how the highs and lows impact us, our mind comprehends the logic of what should and shouldn’t happen, and our body is biologically built to survive.  Even our soul knows there is spiritual value in the here and now.  The whole of our comprehension is tethered to this life only — all bound in a collection of decades — and it stands to reason that our hope would be as well.

Paul’s hope in Christ went against all of that.  In rejecting a thriving here-and-now life for one set on eternity through Christ, he allowed his heart to be crushed with rejection, his mind to be shaped by foolishness, and his body to be bashed by rocks; even his soul wrestled with his inability to live as he knew he must.  (Romans 7:14+)  Because Paul knew that his hope was in something eternal and bigger than him, he was willing to die daily for its sake.  (1 Corinthians 15:31)

If Paul gave up everything, and Christ turned out to be false, he would be most pitied of all people; his immense sacrifices would be worth nothing; I lean into hopelessness most when I question the reality of God, and feel less willing to accept His “foolishness” knowing the cost.  In God we have access to “immeasurably more than we ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20); if we reject/ignore/miss it for “this life only” — desiring more the here-and-now hope — we too are most to be pitied, trading the miracles of God for that which will wither and fade.