We sometimes live is a dark world where the only news we hear is bad news.
People we know are getting sick, really sick and some are dying.
My mind sometimes becomes angry and confused when these things happen.
I have cried out, “Why God? Why are these bad things happening to good people? Why the suffering and pain?”
How is it possible to feel hopeful, to look forward to a more positive future?
The biblical psalmist wrote that, "without vision the people perish." Am I perishing?
I don't ask this question calmly. I am struggling to understand how I might contribute to reversing this descent into fear and sorrow; what I might do to help restore hope to the future.
I have prayed and prayed about it and I've been shown that hopelessness is not the opposite of hope.
Fear is. Hope and fear are close partners.
Anytime we hope for a certain outcome, and work hard to make it a happen, then we also introduce fear – fear of failing, fear of loss.
Two visionary biblical leaders, Moses and Abraham, both carried promises given to them by their God, but they had to abandon hope that they would see these in their lifetime. They we led from faith, not hope, from a relationship with something beyond their comprehension.
T.S. Eliot in the "Four Quartets” writes, “I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.”
Oh, waiting is so tough for me. I want it now. I want relief now. I want to see the sunshine now. I want my hope to spring forth in front of my eyes now.
The world's definitions of hope that are different from God’s.
We might hope our team wins the Super Bowl, or we might hope we don’t lose our jobs or our house.
But the biblical definition of hope is not a hope-so, but a know-so.
We know that we know that God is with us, guiding us, helping us, carrying us, encouraging us, protecting us.
Our hope in God is surer than the sun rising in the morning.
Our hope is found in the Word of God.
Psalm 119:74 says “I have put my hope in your word”, in Psalm 119:81 we read,“… I have put my hope in your word”, and in Psalm 130:5 it declares, “… in his word (The Bible) I put my hope”.
We also read in Psalm 71:14, “But as for me, I will always have hope; I will praise you more and more.”
We have a small plaque hanging in our bathroom that on it has written Romans 12:12, “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer".
That's a recipe for hope in hopeless times for me.
I read it every day. I believe it.
When we read the Word of God (Bible) we can know for certain that we have a secure and certain future for God, who will never allow us to suffer beyond our own capabilities to handle it.
There is nothing on this earth more certain than hope in God. He will never leave us nor will He ever forsake us. God is our anchor, our rock in the present and for the future.
Go today and have a good day of hope and sunshine even when it's raining, snowing, storming all around you. God remains the calming ray of hope.
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