Psalm 119:116 Dashed Hopes

Mad Men, AMC

"You’re born alone and you die alone and this world just drops a bunch of rules on top of you to make you forget those facts. But I never forget. I’m living like there’s no tomorrow because there isn’t one."

That's just one of many cheery quotes from Don Draper, the central character in the TV show Mad Men. If you've never seen the show, it's not an over simplification to sum it up as the story of a man (Don Draper) who started with nothing, stole someone else's life, had everything the advertising world tells us we could ever want, and was so miserable he threw it all away. And he knew it:

"We’re flawed because we want so much more. We’re ruined because we get these things and wish for what we had."

Everyone around Don Draper spends the 92 episodes doing the same as he does, continually scrambling to discover what their life is about, or should be about. Or maybe just what they can piece together and settle for.

In the final episodes most of the characters are shown grabbing hold of a way of life they think they've always wanted. The perfect job or the perfect family, self-fulfillment or love at long last.

But still, having watched these characters throughout the arc of the show's decade, I can see their hopes being dashed in the next season, the one after the series ended.

Sustain me, my God, according to your promise, and I will live;
do not let my hopes be dashed. 

Psalm 119:116

None of the Mad Man characters are portrayed as knowing God. Even the occasional religious side characters don't seem to have much grasp of the heart of God.

But as someone deeply embedded in the fellowship of believers, I feel qualified to say that we are often no better at keeping our hope on target than the irreligious people of Mad Men.

We sing, "My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness", all the while leaving behind one church family after another as we move from one job to the next rung on the ladder.

"I dare not trust the sweetest frame", but I'll gladly go into debt for a nicer home while never considering borrowing for money to give to a church building project.

"His oath, His covenant, His blood support me in the 'whelming flood," but I'm willing to excuse unholy behavior in any politician who will stand for the "right" policies to protect us from the overwhelming onslaught of the "wrong" sort of politics.

Sustain me, my God, according to your promise, and I will live. Sustain me financially, sustain my career, my family, my country, my congregation.

Do not let my hopes be dashed.