…today’s secret…Hope.

­Recently I met a thirty-something lady missionary whose passion is opening Christian churches to a christianless Polish people.

She was born and raised in next-door Ukraine and has a huge heart for Go

When she was in the womb, her pregnant mother was contaminated by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and advised to abort the pregnancy. Radiation sickness? Deformed birth? Slow growth? Cancer? All possible. The mother refused.

And, the newborn did experience radiation sickness early on, but eventually the baby grew into the missionary who now speaks seven languages and travels the world to share her ‘hope’ for the Polish people.

Thousands of lives in Poland will now be made better because of her. You go girl!

You don’t need to know her name. However, you do need to understand how she used the word ‘hope’ in her talk.

‘Hope’ for her was not the wishful-thinking ‘hope’ we have when clutching our lottery ticket.

Her ‘hope’ was an axe that broke down doors. Her ‘hope’ spoke of that which was not yet as though it already was.

Each of us has ‘hope.’ We cling to it. The people you are helping have ‘hope.’

The question is whether their hope has any action attached to it.

That’s your job – setting them on fire to do something, not filling their heads with more wishful thinking.

Here’s the truth.

We imagine action before we take it. We see ourselves doing it before we do it.

No one has ever cheated on their wife without first seeing it in their head. Where the mind has journeyed, the body will follow.

No one is asking you to change the people you are helping. You don’t have the resources and you aren’t God.

But you can help them see a different path. You can help them change their trajectory.

Your ‘hope’ for them is not more wishful thinking. Your ‘hope’ is an axe to break down their doors.

I can see all those new Christian churches in Poland now. Wowser.