To Hope

ruinedforgood
Apr 6, 2024
5 min read

"Hope, my dear friend, is like a delicate flame that flickers within the human heart. It dances in the shadows of uncertainty, casting its glow upon our deepest longings and dreams. But what, you ask, is the essence of hope?"

Have you ever had an event you were looking forward to attending and at the last minute the plans change? What is the feeling left in your heart? If the event was important, you likely felt sorrow. What happens when a situation like this happens over and over? Let's say hypothetically you have an exciting event like this once a quarter and every time without fail, the plan changes and boom, no event. Do you think after a full year of this you will have the same level of anticipation or the expectation of the event really coming to pass? Maybe, maybe not. Have you ever stopped to ponder that the hopeful feeling is usually not only attached to the direct circumstance you are placing your hope, but rather it lies in the root underneath the circumstance altogether? For example, I may be hopeful that a friend goes out for coffee with me, but my "secret hope" might lie in the fact that I want to grow this friendship and have someone who I can go through life with, someone who will help me process difficult thoughts. Now imagine I have this "secret hope" for a while and every time I plan a coffee outing with a friend, it doesn't come to pass. Not only do I lose hope in the direct scenario ever happening, but my "secret hope" dies along with it. As you are reading this, do any "secret hopes" come to your mind?

Hope fulfilled and hope deferred is much bigger than one mere scenario coming to pass. One has the power to bring death to the human heart, and one the power to bring life! In this life, we place our hope in outcomes. We wish for a reality we are uncertain of and with whatever outcome comes to pass, those "secret hopes" are either fulfilled or crushed. Over time, we begin to associate hope with more than mere circumstances, we actually give people the power to set the level on our hope bar. If circumstances are in another person's control, we affiliate the secret hopes of our heart with a person. So, what happens when circumstances are not in our control or another person's control? Maybe, the hope rests in the hands of God Himself.

Time and time again I have experienced my verbalized hopes and secret hopes being crushed. When I know the circumstances that I'm facing are outside of any person's control (including my own), I tend to place them in the hands of Someone greater, Someone bigger... God, my Heavenly Father. When those scenarios in my heart do not come to pass, I begin to realize that I have a much bigger problem than my real-time circumstance, I have a lingering feeling in my heart that goes like this, "Is God really for me? Does He really want good things for me? Am I hoping against hope? Is He true to what He said to me personally? Was I simply hearing wrong all along?" This is real and raw; I'm not going to sugarcoat the internal dialogue I have. Why is this the thinking I resort to when hope is dashed? I believe it's because we are so used to justifying a person's character and goodness by what we see them DO. Maybe I tend to equate harsh realities with this idea that God isn't really for me and the dreams in my heart, yeah, he really doesn't care that much about those. Another Bible character immediately comes to mind when thinking this way: Eve. It is after all, the enemy of our souls target to get us to believe that God is not good, not for us, not mindful of our lives. Doesn't this all make perfect sense? How else does he get us to believe these lies? By using life's circumstances to crush us, over and over and over.

Today, I had a song in my heart as soon as I awoke. The lyrics are, "May the God of all comfort, the God of all peace, fill you with hope." Which of course led me down a rabbit trail of a word study on hope. In studying, I believe I received some personal revelation on the word hope and what it means. First, let's start with the definition. Hope according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is, "Someone or something on which hopes are centered." Someone with which my hopes are centered on. We grow up believing our hope is in another person, a place, a circumstance, or our own goodness and abilities. These fragile things we place our hope in give the enemy easy access to plant lies about the heart of our Father God. But our hope was never meant to rest in any of these, it was meant to rest in God Himself. Here's how I know, Psalm 39:7 says, "And now, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in You." Lamentations 3:24 says, "The Lord is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in Him." One of the goals the Father has for us is to learn to hope in Him. Does this mean there's nothing we hope for in this life? Absolutely not. How do I know that? Well, God has a million promises for us that are found in His Word, His Word is alive, and it is Him. John 1:14 says, "'And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth." Psalm 119:114 also states, "You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in your Word."

We are to place our hope in Someone. He is the keyholder of hope and He is the giver of personal promises that will come to pass. We can trust what He tells us. Remember Abraham and Sarah? They were promised a child and God did not lie when He made the promise to them. He will not lie to you, and He will not lie to me. When hope is deferred because of circumstances in this life, recall two things: The enemy's tactic to destroy your view of God and the fact that God is faithful and true and cannot be anything else but that. Write down today what He has personally promised you and your family as well as promises from His Word. Recognize where you stand with hope. Is your heart feeling alive right now from dreams coming to pass or buried? How does this make you see God and the world? Choose to have hope again because hope is found in an unchanging Father who wants good things for you and will fulfill promises He has made to you.

Luke 11:11

What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!

Proverbs 13:12

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.