Hope it or Forget it!

Hope is a potent virtue. It nudges us forward with a strange expectation of rewarding outcomes, even in the face of ominous circumstances. Let’s use an example from annals of the ancient world. Once upon a time, Benhadad king of Syria besieged Samaria, capital of Israel’s northern kingdom. Consequently, the city was famished for lack of supplies. Famine was so severe that people ate trash. Donkey skulls and pigeon droppings sold for exorbitant prices. Before long, women resorted to eating their babies, even quarreling publicly over whose child was next!

In a situation so dire, think about the fate of social outcasts! Four lepers sat outside the city walls weighing their options. With no food in Samaria, entering the city would have been futile. On the other hand, if they approached Syrian soldiers and begged for food, perhaps they’d get something to eat. If the Syrians decided to kill them, they’d just but die. Death loomed on either side of their decision. The only prospect of finding food lay at the camp of enemy soldiers who had created the dearth. Four destitute lepers pegged their hopes of survival on an insignificant probability. By end of the story, not only had those outcasts procured much spoil for themselves, they were the liberators who saved Samaria from ruthless invaders. A tiny spark of hope in the most unlikely persons became a liberating force for an entire city. Hope is a potent virtue!

Elements of Dynamic Hope

In Christendom, there’s not as much emphasis on hope as on faith. Yet, the three co-equal abiding principles are faith, hope, and love. Hope is not faith, and one should not be confused for the other. Hope is expectation, what you anticipate to happen. Faith is belief, trust, confidence. Hope is what you predict. Faith is what you know. Faith creates hope, but hope doesn’t create faith. For instance, if I make a promise to my daughter, what she knows about me gives her faith (trust / confidence / belief) to hope (expect / await / look forward / predict) that I will fulfil my promise. Inversely, if someone hopes that I will do something that is inconsistent with my nature, such hope is bound to disappoint. I am not obligated to satisfy everybody’s expectancies.

While hope does not create faith, it energizes self-confidence. Ability to tackle life’s challenges often hinges on self-confidence. In that sense, hope plays a crucial role in building stamina. By simply expecting positive outcome, someone is driven to attempt tasks s/he otherwise wouldn’t.

The Christian walk is beset by situations that test faith. A test of faith gauges authenticity. How much do you trust God? How far can your hope hold? What kinds of circumstances would it endure? Almost all tests of faith involve problems. Problems are usually heralded by doubts that scream into our minds, “WHERE IS YOUR GOD?” What we know about God will always be the gauge of our religious expectations. If you hold to the premise that faith in God eliminates problems, every challenge you face will create confusion, anxiety, and disappointment.

Writing to encourage persecuted believers, Paul penned these timeless words, ³ …we also boast in tribulation, knowing that tribulation produces patience, ⁴ patience produces character, and character produces hope. ⁵ And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Rom 5:3-5 ~MEV)

Further down in chapter eight, he reiterates. ²³ …we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. ²⁴ We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it. ²⁵ But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.) (Rom 8:23-25 ~NLT)

What does hope accomplish for the suffering believer? It strengthens our resolve to hold on in spite of problems. Our excerpt text outlines some items in the believer’s hope: –

• future glory!
• our bodies will be released from sin and suffering!
• the day is coming when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children!
• believers will get new bodies that God has promised!

As an anchor steadies a ship in stormy seas, so does hope stabilize a believer through troublous times. Hope is an anchor for the soul. ¹⁷ God also bound himself with an oath, so that those who received the promise could be perfectly sure that he would never change his mind. ¹⁸ So God has given both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us. ¹⁹ This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the curtain into God’s inner sanctuary. (Heb 6:17-19 ~NLT)

Preparation: The True Posture of Hope

Hope is not groundless fantasy of idlers who build castles in the air. The dynamic hope of Christian expectation puts wheels under carts of those who posses it. Noah prepared for floods at a time when the concept of rain was practically unheard of. He built an ark to save his life and family from an expectation that seemed illusory to others. Today, it’s much easier for us to grasp a threat of water pouring from the skies. People in Noah’s day had no point of reference. The threat was quite ridiculous. The point we’re making here is that Noah’s hope made him do something. To prepare for the deluge, he built a seaworthy vessel. What does your hope ride on?

For expectant mothers to weave baby clothes or surf the web for infant shopping is a common phenomenon. The hope of delivering a child creates mental postures that call for preparedness. Note how Paul explains the posture of hope in our reference passage. If we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it. But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.

Whatever we hope for, we prepare for. If you have ordered a new stove, refrigerator, television set or the like, what do you do while you wait for delivery? You prepare a receptacle for your appliance. Hope is preparation. Hope is a readiness of mind and action. It’s what a child does while awaiting mom’s return. “Mom will be home soon. I will give Mom a hug when she arrives.” Anticipation without preparation is a misnomer. There’s no such thing as passive hope.

²⁵ …A certain woman had a hemorrhage for twelve years, ²⁶ and had suffered much under many physicians. She had spent all that she had, and was not better but rather grew worse. ²⁷ When she had heard of Jesus, she came in the crowd behind Him and touched His garment. ²⁸ For she said, “If I may touch His garments, I shall be healed.” ²⁹ And immediately her hemorrhage dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of the affliction. (Mark 5:25-29 ~MEV)

What did the woman do in anticipation of divine healing? Did she think that Jesus would one day come over to her house and heal her? No, she went looking for Him. A woman with her condition was ceremonially unclean and not permitted to touch other people. So, she went secretly. What kept her going when so many odds were lined up against her? She said to herself, “if I may but touch His clothes, I shall be healed.” Do you suppose she voiced her hope only one time? Absolutely not. That dear woman made a chorus line out of her hope, and she hummed it to herself through the crowd until she touched the Lord’s robe.

The ailing woman based her hope on God’s Word. While the multitudes milled around with no objective other than to see a prophet, she anticipated fulfillment of prophecy. “But for you who fear my name, the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings. And you will go free, leaping with joy like calves let out to pasture. (Mal 4:2 ~NLT) Tassels were sewn onto the hems of Israeli gowns. These served to remind Israel of God’s covenants. Those tassels were commonly called wings, and that’s the part of Jesus’ robe the woman sought to touch. If Jesus was the promised Messiah, touching the ‘wings of His robe’ would transmit healing to her!

Find Ways to Keep Hope Alive

Mnemonics are popular techniques of cueing students’ memories on academic concepts. “Every Good Boy Deserves Favor” is easier to remember than memorizing EGBDF musical notes! I still turn to my kindergarten mnemonic trying to figure out how many days are in a given month. “Thirty days have September, April, June and November. All the rest have thirty-one, except February alone, which has twenty-eight days clear, and twenty-nine days in each leap year.” Create poems or songs to rekindle your hope in God’s promises. Recite them to yourself often.

The prodigal Son story is one of Jesus’ most memorable parables. The gist of the story is not to encourage profligacy—a perspective of the older brother—it is about familiar attributes of their father. If the disgraced boy hoped to find acceptance from his older brother, he’d not have opted to go back home. Folks don’t suddenly adopt mean attitudes toward others. It’s possible the younger man fled home over his brother’s meanness; we don’t know. So, to retract his steps required courage. What he knew about his father energized his hope. Broke, dressed in rags and at the verge of starvation, the prodigal son verbalized words that carried him back to the place of refuge. ¹⁷ “When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, ‘At home even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger! ¹⁸ I will go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you…”  (Luke 15:17 ~NLT)

Except for known attributes of that good father, this story would have a different ending. Mercy was neither to be found with the older brother nor the pejorative culture of their community. Not unlike our modern-day toxic attitudes where justice is about destroying lives rather than nursing folks back to sanity. The prodigal son’s father was a mature and reliable parent. On the known attributes of a dad’s character, a wayward juvenile found hope to return home.

I hope these stories teach you an important lesson on how hope works. Hope is carried in the womb of our most cherished information. We can only birth what we conceive. Hence, we must zealously guard our sources of facts. If you don’t know your father, neither do you know who you are. Who defines God to you? Who can tell you what to expect from an unknown father? If God is an amorphous labyrinth of abstract beliefs, how can His Persona stimulate your hope?

Ultimately, the knowledge by which you manage your day-to-day affairs transcribes the story of your life. If the facts you rely on aren’t sourced from God who created you, they are erroneous. They need to be altered. Inaccurate info always leads to undesirable outcomes. Never depend on a liar in times of trouble. It’s like chewing with a bad tooth or walking with a crippled foot.