The word hope is kind of a funny word. It can either mean something amazing and eternal and incredible…or it can be the most casual word we ever use. We can use it to describe heaven and Jesus and salvation…or whether we get ice cream tonight.

“I hope it doesn’t snow on Easter.”

“I hope the Brewers have a winning season this year.”

“I hope I get that job.”

“I hope I get a good parking spot at Target.”

“I hope my kids get into a good college.”

“I hope my kids don’t fight over the remote tonight.”

Hope is the emotional bridge that Jesus builds with his followers. It was on full display during the “Triumphal Entry,” the story Matthew 21 where Jesus comes into Jerusalem for the Passover festival, his final journey to the cross, the grave, and the resurrection. The people were cheering for him! “Hosanna! God, save us! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”

What he had to offer was hope. What they assumed was a conquering hero, a man ready to fight the Roman oppressors, a return to the glories of Israel’s past. What they got looked a lot different – a man on a donkey, the king coming in peace, willing to die. What Jesus offered was hope. But many of them missed it.

Jesus offers us hope for today. When the alarm goes off but you hit snooze too many times and you rush out the door and your daughter is complaining about her hair for the thousandth time and you need to get to work but there’s a wreck on the way… And when your boss says, “I’m so sorry” but hands you the layoff notice anyway and the car will cost more than twice the amount you thought to fix and your husband seems even more distant… Jesus offers hope.

And we sometimes don’t get it because we don’t notice it or recognize it. We want a white knight on a shining steed. But we get a man on a donkey. But his hope is always greater than our despair.

Jesus offers us hope for eternity. When you go to bed at night and the doubts start to seep in again and you’re not sure how to answer that question from your son about how exactly we know that Jesus rose again and the world is both a wonderful gift and a broken chaos… Jesus offers hope.

The eternal hope of Jesus is not an escape. We’re not just biding our time until we can get out of here. His eternal hope is tied directly to his everyday hope. Jesus offers hope for today that begins now and stretches to eternity. You may not see it because it’s just way too big. But it’s there.

When we lean into our relationship with God, we can get a deeper sense of that hope. It may take a moment of silence to begin each day, patiently waiting for him to clear the fog and reset our vision. But he will be there. Extending a hand of hope.

I’ve asked you to spend some time in self-reflection this week. To create some space in life to take a deep look at yourself, at what is going on inside. Reflect on a bit on your life, what is important. And examine what is going on, your motivations and your values. When we see ourselves more clearly, we see God more clearly.

Self-reflection is not inviting God to know me, he already does. It’s inviting him to help me know me. It’s getting to know about you in a very specific way. And it’s powerful too!

Tasha Eurich studies self-reflection and its effect on CEOs, executives, and business leaders. She wrote about it in her book simply called Insight. Her research has shown that people who are self-aware are happier, make better decisions at work and at home, and even raise more mature children. But when we’re delusional about ourselves, we frustrate and alienate the people around us too.

But self-reflection doesn’t mean that we don’t like ourselves. When we see ourselves clearly, we shouldn’t be afraid of what we see. It’s when our self-vision is cloudy that we’re more likely to not see what we like. In fact, Eurich points out that those who have clear self-reflection are more forgiving of others and accepting of themselves. They have higher empathy and make better friends.

So, what does her research say about putting this into practice?. What I really liked about her work is that she identified seven pillars of insight, different things we need to be looking for when we undergo self-reflection. I think if you need to have an outline as you go through your moment of self-reflection this week, then this is it.

1. Values

These are the core set of principles that guide how we want to live our lives. This is what’s most important to you. You can think of them as non-negotiables. You can change or adapt where you live, what you do for a living, or even who you hang out with. But your values will never change.

Ask yourself, “What do I really care about?”

2. Passions

This is what we love to do. What gets you up in the morning, what you’re interested in, and what you just can’t live without. You may have a passion for teaching, for the ’82 Brewers, needlework, leading – it doesn’t matter! It’s up to you.

Ask yourself, “What really gets me going?”

3. Aspirations

Passions are what you love to do, but aspirations are where you want to go. It’s what we want out of life. It involves your occupation, your family relationships, and the goals you set. But it’s so much more than that. It’s thinking long-term about your life and how you intend to get there.

Ask yourself, “Where am I going?”

4. Fit

This is the type of environment you need to be happy and engaged. It can be your workplace, your neighborhood, where you want to go to school, but also includes the type of people you fit in with. We don’t all fit together all the time. I love that church is a place where different can be the same. But that doesn’t mean we have to be around each other all the time. What’s your fit?

Ask yourself, “What do I need to be fulfilled?”

5. Patterns

These are the consistent ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving across situations. Not just when things are going good, but when things don’t always go your way. Actions lead to behaviors over time, and that’s your patterns.

Ask yourself, “What am I thinking and doing?”

6. Reactions

Your the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors when you respond to others. When something happens to you, how do you react? We all have our own set of reactions that can define your life.

Ask yourself, “What are my triggers?”

7. Impact

Finally, this is how our behavior affects others. We often think of self-reflection as all about me. But this is where we take into account those around us. When I get moody, who’s watching and taking notes? When I respond the wrong way, who gets hurt. But when I act thoughtfully, who gains from that?

Ask yourself, “What legacy am I leaving behind?”

Next time you spend time in self-reflection, try using these seven ideas as a guide.

Repentance. What does it mean? In a word, it means to return. The Hebrew word for repentance, teshuva, means to turn. It can mean to turn your face, turn your back on, or simply to return to an old way. It was used a lot in the prophetic writings to describe how the nation of Israel returned from the exile.

In the New Testament, written in Greek, the word is metanoeo, which literally means to change one’s mind. A change. A turn. That’s what repentance is all about.

The biblical writers loved language and grammar and words. But more than that, they loved stories. Jesus loved stories. One story, in particular, describes repentance without ever explaining its doctrine.

In Luke 15, Jesus tells three stories, actually. The first is about a lost sheep and the second is about a lost coin. Both are found by their owners who then celebrate their return. The last of the three stories is the most detailed but has the same theme. A return of what was lost.

There was a young man who desired to be free from his father’s grasp. So, he requested to be given an advance of his share of the inheritance, one-third of all his father owned. Then the young son ran off to the city, where he spent all he had. One day he awoke to find himself wallowing among the pigs, his stomach empty and his heart broken. He turned his face back to his father’s home and headed off.

When his father saw him from afar, he didn’t wait with arms folded or put a stern look on his face. Instead, he ran to his son and embraced him. The celebration was on. What was lost is now found!

The son’s actions here underscore the two processes of repentance we talked about this week. First, he changed his mind. Luke writes that he “came to his senses.” The first step in repentance is to make up our minds that we no longer want what we have. We thought we did, but now we find those cravings and desires empty. We make up our mind that we want to go back.

Repentance involves changing our minds about God. We shift from transactional to relational. It’s not about how we can sway him or turn him. It’s that we simply turn back to him. It’s the true longing of our hearts, to be with him. Sin clouds that longing. But when we fully understand our God, we see that he has a longing too, to be with us. And his longing is never clouded because he is sinless.

We also have to change our minds about ourselves, from accident to intention. When we find ourselves in a mess we are tempted to think we are messed up. When we make a mistake, we think that we are the mistake. When we fail, we think we are a failure. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The next step, he changed his direction. It took action on his part, a turning to the path that led back home. That part of repentance is the hardest. We can all decide we want to change our lives, but putting that into action takes guts, it takes determination, it takes perseverance. It’s tough.

But the truth is, it’s not up to us. Repentance is a grace, a gift from the father. The father didn’t stand waiting for the son to complete the act of repentance. He ran to him, embracing him and helping him through those final steps of repentance. That’s the picture of God, our father. We may have turned from him, but he never turned away from us.

Seeing God clearly means that we see ourselves through unclouded eyes. We know who we are in Christ – a child of God. And then we live that out, through love. We love God. We love ourselves. And we love others.

That love of others may be the most important part of repentance. The older son refused to love. When the party was on, he turned away. He wanted his young, irresponsible brother punished not praised. In the end, it’s his lack of love that is front and center.

True repentance is not fully accomplished until we come to a place of radical love. Love for our God. Love for ourselves. But also, love of others. Including our enemies, as Jesus put it. When we return to God and find his grace, it should spur us to show even more grace. If we don’t, then we need to turn again to a God with open arms, running after those who have run from him.

The Christian calendar, if you weren’t aware, has a 40-day period leading up to Easter. Lent is from the Latin for “spring.” But most of us think of Lent as a time of restraint, of giving up something. Maybe you give up chocolate for Lent, or social media. Maybe it’s meat and fish. Lent is really about self-control. “Self-control is making a decision against yourself,” Mark Batterson once wrote. And I think that hits the nail right on the head.

When I think of Lent, I think of fasting. And when I think of fasting, I think of the story in the first half of Matthew 4. We find Jesus, right after his baptism. Right after the Holy Spirit descended upon him in the form of a dove. Right after the heavens parted and God called out, “This is my son in whom I am well pleased!”

Right after that momentous occasion, he is sent out into the wilderness, the desert, for 40 days. No food. A month and a half-long fast.

I have to confess, fasting is tough for me. I read that story and I automatically get hungry. It can be right after lunch, I read Matthew 4 and I think, “Man, I could go for a taco right about now. And you know what, I better add some nachos just to be safe.”

Why is saying no to ourselves so hard? Why is it so tough to make a decision against ourselves that we know will help us? Here’s one idea. Whenever we fast, we feel vulnerable. We are vulnerable to hunger, to anger, to being tired. And when we are vulnerable, we are also vulnerable to making mistakes, missing the mark. We are vulnerable to sin.

And here’s the strange part about that. Whenever we deny ourselves in a fast, we are actually drawn closer to God. When we say no to ourselves, we are able to say yes to him. When we make those decisions against ourselves, we are making decisions in favor of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus was fasting for forty days straight. And then here comes the devil. Satan sits down next to him and says, “Some bread would be nice, wouldn’t it? Go ahead and tell those stones to turn into a nice hot loaf and dig in.” Jesus was tempted by baked goods. As an Italian, I can relate. I understand that temptation of bread! But Jesus said no. Not because he was fully God and fully man. But because he allowed his fast to teach him self-control. And he used that moment as a pause. He stopped, thought about his mission, his father, his future, and said no to temptation.

That’s what self-control does. It puts God in control. It allows us to pause and think it through. “Will this please God?” “How will this affect those who are close to me?” “How will I feel when it’s all over?” Self-control means that we pause, think it through, and then act in a way that pleases God and protects ourselves.

Self-control can feel a bit stuffy. “Extra cheese!” That’s a bit more exciting, isn’t it? Or how about, “Why not?” That’s another good phrase to get us under the door of temptation. “Who will it hurt?” Another great way to deflect blame and responsibility.

But self-control, in all its stuffiness, is the one thing that can help us maintain spiritual growth in our lives. It allows us to make the right decision. It puts God in the driver’s seat and we can always trust him to take us right where we need to go. And at the end, he brings us to a place that is so much better than “extra cheese!” It’s a land of infinite promise, over and above immediate gratification.