Reflection: Volume Isn't Victory
You’ve got eyes. You’ve got ears. You can see and hear. You’ve got a news feed. You’ve got that knot in your stomach that shows up uninvited when you scroll too long or think too hard about what kind of world we’re leaving our kids.
Some of you are angry right now. Some of you are exhausted. Some of you have wondered if any of this actually matters when everything seems to be going sideways.
The apostle Paul wrote to a church that had every reason to despair. They were persecuted, marginalized, and watching their world come apart at the seams. And he told them this: “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9)
That’s not optimism. That’s something more profound.
Optimism looks at the circumstances and calculates the odds. Hope looks past the circumstances to something more real than what we can see. Optimism says, “I think things will work out.” Hope says, “I’m going to keep showing up regardless.”
On this MLK Weekend, I’ve been thinking a lot about the people who had every reason to quit but didn’t. People who marched when marching meant risking everything. People who sat at lunch counters knowing what was coming. People who kept singing freedom songs in jail cells.
They were not naive. They simply knew that the darkness doesn’t get the final word. John’s Gospel puts it this way: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:5)
The loudest voices right now are the ones selling fear and division. But volume isn’t the same as victory.
So here’s what I’m asking of you this week: choose one act of stubborn hope. You don’t have to change the world by Friday. But you can bend it, just a little, in the direction of light.
Dr. King reminded us that “darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.” So be the light. Not in some grand, exhausting way. Just in the next opportunity that crosses your path.
That’s how the world changes. One stubborn act of hope at a time.
Pastor Jamey