I’ve never been big on formulas. To me, all those formulas in high school math and science were like trying to swim against the tide wearing floaties. They were certainly enough to convince me that pursuing a career that required many of them was definitely not for me.

In college, I discovered acronyms weren’t nearly as daunting. Good thing, since my career in education was filled with them. These days, daily life seems peppered with acronyms to inform and direct us in so many ways.

One acronym recently evolved that’s helping me clarify and focus on my servant calling: H.O.P. Here’s the backstory.

Like my journey through Isaiah earlier this year, the Lord told me to slow down in the Book of Luke, to not rush over what it could say to me. Truthfully, I probably haven’t paid too much attention to John the Baptist in my studies until I began reading Luke. This verse in chapter three actually made me catch my breath.

But John intervened: “I’m baptizing you here in the river. The main character in this drama, to whom I’m a mere stagehand, will ignite the kingdom life, a fire, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out.

lUKE 3:16 MSG

With little study, I’d always thought of John the Baptist strictly as a “firebrand.” And maybe he was, but perhaps not in the way we currently imagine firebrands. John was stirring up stuff, but not for his own agrandizement, or personal gain.

Before John was even conceived, God put a call on his life. His parents, Zechariah and Elizabeth, took it seriously and did all they could to prepare him to fulfill God’s call. Armed only with obedience, as an adult, John sought a very simple life, and like Jesus, a time of solitude and preparation for the call he’d received.

Wearing camel hair, and eating locusts and honey sound pretty crazy to us. However, I’ve learned God can use ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING to work out His will in our lives. Perhaps simplicity and solitude were the tools the Lord used to stir up great passion in John to deliver His call for repentance and forgiveness.

God used the passion He had ignited in John to cut to the chase with the crowds who came to hear him.

Crowds of people came to be baptized by John. He said to them, “You poisonous snakes! Who warned you to run away from God’s anger that is coming? You must do the things that will show that you really have changed your hearts. 

Luke 7-8a ICB

Firebrand, right? But when questioned if he was the Messiah, John quickly shifted gears, setting the record straight. He did more than that, John flipped the script.

(It’s important to remember that for most people in Palestine at that time, they lived under the tyranny of Roman officials and the Sanhedrin. They were probably used to being forced to obey the loudest megaphones in town.)

When asked if he was the Messiah, instead of stepping up to the microphone, John chose to “take a knee” (figuratively speaking) among the crowds.

John offered those seeking answers a glimpse into the life of Christ, a life of humility, obedience, and passion.

That’s it. That’s the acronym clarifying God’s call on my life, that’s helping me to stay more focused on the work He has for me to do: H.O.P. (humility, obedience, passion). And praise God, I know, “I can do everything God asks me to with the help of Christ who gives me the strength and power.” (Philippians 4:13 TLB)