Hope

Hope. What is it? How do some grasp it with such tenacity and others not? Why, when there is so much evidence of hopelessness around us, does hope endure within the human spirit? These are all questions I have asked myself and recently revisited.

Having been challenged to write the explanation of my reason for having hope I found it to be an undertaking greater than I first realized. It was necessary to refresh my memory as to the definition of hope: to desire something with expectation to receive, achieve or obtain. Yet how often we view hope from the negative perspective -  wanting something but not expecting to receive. That was my view of hope for many years. As a child hope always seemed to be a double-edged sword with the power to execute joy or great disappointment. More often than not the latter seemed to hold true. However, when I discovered that hope in itself was to elicit expectation of obtainment that revealed a whole other perspective leaving me to wonder what I had been missing.

Now that I've looked at it from a few differing perspectives I realize where the issue may be for most of us who, like me, have viewed it from the negative. Hope, by nature, brings the expectation of fulfillment yet from experience there's doubt - few of us have ever received everything we have ever desired or wanted. Hope has seemed to fail us just as relationships, or finances, and because lies are told, promises are not kept, life gives way to death, and the list goes on and on. Are you looking to these things for your hope? Reality reveals there is reason to doubt, right? It becomes a bit like attempting to grasp a shadow. Expectation with doubt becomes self-cancelling leaving a void of hopelessness and an irreconcilable stalemate. How then can it be possible to have any positive view of hope?

ASSURANCE

Hope must have assurance. But there are no assurances in anything in life, you might be saying. Ah, that was my experience as well - until I discovered there is complete assurance to be found. But in finding assurance there must also be faith. The faith that there is only one thing we can ever hope for with the assurance of receiving - eternal life. We can put our faith in many things and have them fail just as hope may have failed us, so what is the difference? The difference is the source. Relying on anything temporary in which to place our faith or put our trust and hope is futile. Remember that brief list previously mentioned? Relationships fail, finances are unstable, people lie and die - there is NOTHING in this world that is completely lasting or reliable. We have to look outside of what we can see, outside of the temporary nature of life, to find what is enduring enough to hold our hope and faith. In doing so we will find the contentment that comes with such hope. This contentment overrides all other disappointments in life.

Can we expect relationships to last forever when we see them fail daily? Should we trust or hope in finances when money so quickly disappears? What about the expectation of living forever when it is clear everyone dies? Or, is it possible to trust when promises are broken and lies are told? These are all circumstances that affect how we regard hope. So where do we find the assurance that makes hope possible?

GOD

See what I mean? It's a challenge to explain hope. I believe it can't be done without looking at God as the source. Why? Because hope has to be founded on truth. If there is no truth there is no hope. There must be ONE reliable and trustworthy place from which hope emanates. Where have you found truth? Have you found ONE source of truth that has never disappointed or failed? I believe that source is found in God because He has said He is incapable of lying. And, after close study of His character - not to mention His track record - I have found this to be consistent with His nature. On this plane of life I certainly don't trust those who have lied to me. Who better to trust than the One who has said, promised, and proven Himself to be true. So when He has said He loves me, wants me to have hope, and has promised and provided the means for hope and accomplished the assurance of my hope, that I believe to be true. The human spirit not only requires one truth, one hope and one assurance, it longs for and craves the satisfaction of truth and hope. How has God provided these?

JESUS

Seeing there was no way for us to find the reliability of hope on our own, God provided it for us through His Son Jesus. That physical expression of Himself sent into the world to show us the reliability of His love for us - and to give us hope. Jesus became the greatest expression of the promise of hope that could ever be given - and never outdone. God sealed His promise of hope, the hope of more than just this life in this world - something far greater - with the sacrificial act of Jesus' execution on the cross. But not just execution, crucifixion, the cruelest form of death mankind has ever instituted. Why would God choose to do this when He, as God, is able to accomplish anything? Because He wanted His promise of hope to be irrevocably, horrifyingly beautiful enough to be a once-and-for-all trustworthy pact of His...

LOVE

So, what is hope to me? It is believing in the assurance of God's love and the promise of life beyond this life, sealed by His promise in the blood of His own Son. Anything else I may hope for pales in comparison.

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God...and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Romans 5:1-2,5