“Keep hope alive.” Martin Luther King, Jr. knew that hope was a fragile thing. And there is nothing Evil wants to do as much as kill hope that we might be overcome with despair.
Hope is one of those words that is easily misunderstood. Often we think of it as a wish. I hope the Red Sox win tonight. But for the Christian, hope is far more profound that that. As one whose hope is under siege, I needed to read The Dream of Hope in The Healing Path by Dan Allender.
“Hope is the quiet, sometimes incessant call to dream for the future. The present moment is not enough to satisfy our souls completely; no matter how good or bad, the now leaves us hungering for more. … Biblical hope is substantial faith regarding the future.”
Hope is not vague, but substantial. It has weight to it, specifics. And this is why hope can be so maddening. It seems so far off at times, as if those desires are impossible to fulfill.
“Only the lenses of faith can put suffering into perspective. When faith enables us to remember how God has redeemed portions of our past, our anticipation of when and how he will redeem us in the future increases. … Gabriel Marcel defined hope as “a memory of the future.”
Hope looks past present suffering, aided by past deliverance. Hope is sure God will come through, at some point, and deliver because he has a track record of delivering his people. He has a track record of delivering me, so as I suffer I look ahead to when he eventually will reach down and lift me up.
We keep hope alive, in part, by reciting how God has delivered his people and us over time. We remember, dragging those memories from the forgotten parts of our minds. We rehearse God’s past faithfulness so we will lean on his future faithfulness rather than despair and give up.
“Hope focuses not on our circumstances, but on Christ’s coming and the redemption of our character. .. My heart will never become any bigger than that in which or in whom I hope. … Hope is a muscle that must be nourished and exercised daily to grow throug the normal nutrients of knowing and doing God’s will. I wish hope progressed naturally and easily just as our body develops from infancy to adulthood. Instead, hope grows through encounters that require us to risk, struggle, surrender and wait.”
Cavman Considers 