I am honored to have my friend and Pastor share today on my blog. Pete is one of the most amazing people I know. We are going to give this book away! If you RT this post you will be entered to win a copy of Pete’s new book, Let Hope In. It is absolutely amazing. We all need hope and you will find it when you read this book. RT and you are in…lets go friends!
If you’ve ever created something, then you know one of the first questions people tend to ask you is, “Why?”
Why did you market it that way? Why did you choose that theme? Why did you choose that date? Why did you choose those songs?
I think it’s a fair question. People want to know the heart behind your creation. I am so honored that my new book, Let Hope In, released this month and so I’ve been asked that question with great frequency. “Pete, why did you write it?”
My answer? Well, I really believe that hope changes everything.
I think it’s important for people to know that my first desire, my first calling, is to be a pastor. I’m a pastor who happens to write books. Not the other way around. So when I write I always have the church in mind. I’m always thinking about the different groups that make up our community whether it’s the person who has yet to commit to a relationship with Jesus or whether it’s the church member who has been following Christ longer than I’ve been alive.
I am aware that everyone we have the privilege to lock eyes with is in need of healing.
I believe hope can disarm guilt, shatter shame, and put your past in it’s place.
All you have to do is make the choice to let in in.
It won’t be easy.
It won’t be quick.
But it’s possible.
Even if you’ve experienced pain in your past? Yes, especially if you’ve experienced pain in your past.
You see, some people will never get beyond the pain of their past. It will wreak havoc in their personal and professional lives because they will keep cursing their pain, and it will keep cursing them back. They will choose to believe they are inseparably attached to their past without realizing they are, in fact, making a choice to hold on to it.
They will hold on to it in one of two ways. Either they will give in to it with a self-loathing that ensures perpetual misery and failure, or they will wage an angry and desperate war against it in an effort to bury its devastation in self-denial. Either way, they will never surrender the past pain. They will hold on to the idea that they shouldn’t have had to go through that pain and that life is not fair. And they will, therefore, miss out on the brand-new ending that could in fact be theirs.
Then there’s a group of people who will take a different path. They will realize their past isn’t really their past. They will come to grips with the fact that their past pain is still impacting them and choose to rise above it. In an incomprehensible twist, they will surrender their pain, instead of ignoring or denying there is strength in letting go. it. They will choose to be emptied of it. And in a glorious miracle, God will actually use the pain of their past to help redeem others, in effect, allowing them to find purpose in the pain.
This choice isn’t easy. You have to choose to do something you think you can’t do.
It requires a resolve that can only be found deep within your soul. But this choice does nothing less than determine your destiny.
It’s the choice to let go of your desire to have life go the way you planned it.
It’s the choice to find hope in your hurt.
It’s the choice called surrender.
There is strength in letting go.
There is radical power in surrender.
And I pray that today you, or those who have been entrusted to your leadership, can begin their journey to let hope in.
Thanks Pete! Please, go get this book! Today. Now. And get a copy to share with someone you know who needs some hope.
