"...show...diligence..."

Continuing to read Hebrews 6:7-12
"We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure."

This is a much deeper challenge than it first appears to be. I was tempted to pass over this verse quickly, perhaps just to rap up this section with one last blog and move on to something else. Diligence has never been a problem for me. I always have a multitude of interests and projects on the go. Mix these in with all of the usual responsibilities of work and family life and you have both a mandate and a recipe for diligence. Fortunately I had one of those sober second thoughts before I moved away from this subject. Hermeneutical lesson number one: pay close attention to context. This verse is not about diligence. This verse is about the previous verse. Diligence is not the goal, it is the means to the goal. What the writer is pressing home here is not that we would be hard working, driven people but that we would be people who are all about loving God and others. Diligence of one sort can be the enemy of diligence of another sort. My focused, passionate life, either in my work or my hobbies, can submerge my attention to the fact that I live in a world where love is given and received, neglected and ignored, cherished and explored. The two great commandments are not about empire building, not about making my mark, not about asset acquisition, they say simply: love God (with everything you've got) and love the people around you (as much as you love yourself). If this seems like a truism, simply a restatement of the obvious, then I suspect that we are attempting to brush aside this challenge. These two basic commandments challenge everything we are as self-centered, material obsessed, worldly beings. We are being asked here to get in touch with the deepest priorities of the living God who "loved us and gave himself for us."

The promise that is attached to this application of diligence to our relationships with God and people is that we will "make our hope sure." The mark of the person who lacks faith is that he is "without hope and without God in the world." When I enter into meaningful relationships of love and nurture I will increase my sense of hope. Hope is a by-product of relationship. Relationship increases security, isolation feeds insecurity and meaninglessness. We are not being asked to do something here that has no payoff. Our duty to love is a deeply self rewarding activity. What greater gift could I give to myself than the gift of hope?