The Mirror Behind the Counter

Romans 15:5–13

For most of my younger years, hope and peace were not words I used. I dealt in love, money and thrills. From twenty-three I was running a business and using drugs at the same time, lurching from one trouble to the next and cursing a life that seemed determined to go wrong. What I could not see, or would not see, was that I was the one walking myself into every predicament. I wanted the high, not hope. I wanted quiet, not peace.

It took Changi, a Crossroads Bible study and the patience of Pastor Paul Tan before the fog began to lift. Even now, God’s correction keeps arriving in an unexpected place: behind the counter at TCE. Every morning, as our Restarters tie on their aprons, I see my own mistakes looking back at me. The young man who thinks one more shortcut won’t hurt. The one who is sure the world owes him something. I recognise them because I was them. That mirror used to shame me. Today it humbles me, and it points me to the only One who changed the reflection.

Paul calls Him “the God of hope.” He is both the source and the object of our hope. This is not wishful thinking, nor the brief optimism I once chased after a good month of sales or a good night out. It is hope anchored in God’s character and kept by His promises. The same God supplies endurance and encouragement (v. 5), which is just as well, because rebuilding a life is slow. So is keeping a café alive, because surviving F&B in Singapore is just plain difficult. Rents climb, margins thin, and some months the only thing holding us up is grace.

Then Paul turns to unity: “receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God” (v. 7, KJV). In Rome, Jew and gentile were never meant to share a table. At our URA café, a Restarter, a volunteer and a planner on her lunch break stand at the same bar. In a Changi classroom, men of every race open the same Book. None of us earned our place. We were all received. Unity like that is not a programme; it is worship.

So when hope runs thin, I no longer stare harder at my circumstances. I look to the God who received me when I had nothing to bring. Joy and peace are His to pour in. Abounding hope is simply the overflow.

Reflect: What keeps your hope in God alive when adversity comes? Who is God asking you to receive, as you were received?