A few years ago, we brought home a tiny sick chick from a local store. We’re a bit of a chick hospital around here — always trying to give the little ones a fighting chance. But this one didn’t look like it was going to make it. By the time we got home, I was convinced it was already gone.
Splayed out flat in the bottom of the box. I left it on the porch and walked away. It’s dead. It’s over.
But Lane wouldn’t let it go.
He asked to see it. I kept insisting — it’s gone, there’s nothing there. But he looked anyway. And he saw something move.
Give it water!
I didn’t believe it would matter. But I did it. And that tiny little chick lifted its head.
That baby lived.
Years later, Lazarus is a happy, beloved rooster — loud and full of himself and absolutely thriving on this farm.
I think about that moment a lot. How close I came to walking away from something that still had life in it. How hope — stubborn, quiet, refusing-to-quit hope — saw what I couldn’t see.
That’s the thing about hope. It sees what we’ve already given up on. And it turns out, the Apostle Paul had a lot to say about exactly that kind of hope.
“Oh! May the God of green hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that your believing lives, filled with the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit, will brim over with hope!”
— Romans 15:13, The Message
Notice the first word. Oh.
Paul doesn’t ease into this. He doesn’t open with a carefully constructed theological argument. He opens with an interjection. And that matters. When Paul says Oh, he’s conveying the deepest sense of surprise and complete excitement about what’s coming next. It’s like he’s saying — hey, I cannot wait to share this with you. I can hardly talk fast enough to spread this good news.
That’s the spirit behind this whole verse. Pure, breathless, can’t-contain-it joy.
And then Paul does what Paul does best — he describes God in the most colorful of word choices.
The God of green hope.
Think about that word. Green. Paul isn’t reaching for a generic descriptor. Green highlights God as a source of fresh, living, vibrant hope. Paul is saying — God is alive. And He brings us alive in Jesus Christ to be strong and flourish. Christ in you, the hope of glory! This isn’t old, dusty, hanging-on-by-a-thread hope. This is the kind of hope that pushes up through ground everybody else already walked away from.
From that foundation, Paul prays two specific things:
Fill them with joy. Fill them with peace.
Not a little. Not enough to get through the day. Filled up. Complete. The way a cup that is truly full doesn’t need anything added to it. No searching. No striving. Nowhere else to turn. Everything needed is already present, already given, in Jesus Christ.
And then Paul lands the whole thing with a why.
“So that our believing lives would be filled with the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit so that we will brim over with eternal hope.”
Wow. What a promise.
Think about it. Your life filled with the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit. Such that your life cannot contain all that God has provided to us through Jesus Christ.
The abundance of eternal hope in Jesus Christ brims over. Spills over. Splashes on others.
That is what Paul is praying for you. That is the promise sitting right here in Romans 15:13.
This week, let’s ask for it. Let’s welcome the Holy Spirit’s life-giving power and indwelling in us. Let’s receive Paul’s promise of being filled and overflowing with the joy, the peace, and the eternal hope of Jesus Christ in our lives.
That’s not just good news. That’s the best news there is.
Now that’s BombDiggity.
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