Hope is Hard Work
When unwanted circumstances, grief, or long periods of waiting press us, choosing hope takes intention, prayer, and drinking from God's unending supply.
"Hope" is a verb.
In the wait, we impatiently give up on God's redemption and restoration. Our weariness gives way to passivity, then we stop going to God altogether with our bold prayers. He must not hear me or His answer is no, we assume in our finite, human timelines.
I get it, friend. I really do. I've been on the end of unanswered prayers or answers that I didn't want. But discouragement only drove me deeper into despair.
Hope is hard work.
Each spring in my back yard, little buds start bursting from the ground. I don't have a green thumb, so each year I'm pleasantly surprised when perennial colors bud from their dormant sleep. Without my help, God actively feeds, nurtures, and prepares new life in the dark seasons, deep in the dirt.
If I stare at the ground all winter, I can't will the blooms to burst forth until their proper time. Likewise, if I focus on a circumstantial outcome, I become anxious forgetting that nourishment and growth is happening beneath the surface.
However, when I shift my eyes to the object of true hope, my endurance is anchored by peace in Christ's work and timing. God, in His steadfast love, will not abandon his children.
The words of this hymn come to mind as I think about HOPE:
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus Christ, my righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
On Christ the solid rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
All other ground is sinking sand
When darkness veils his lovely face
I rest on His unchanging grace
In every high and stormy gale
My anchor holds within the veil
Hope does not disappoint.
When we cannot see God's goodness in our own strength, we can wholly lean on Jesus. We never have to be ashamed of Christ-based hope, because our trust is never misplaced.
Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Romans 5:3-5 (ESV)
Just like plants begin to bud each spring after a dormant season, our hope is realized because God's promises are always kept and His fruit is lasting. I'm praying for you, friend, to cling to our Living Hope because in Christ your future is sure.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Peter 1:3-5
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