I wrestled with the concept of hope and simply hashed it out in writing. Because, you know, that’s just how I do things.
Hope
Hope is a four letter word. I’m sure that goes without saying, but we talk about four-letter words with a certain smirk, knowing that certain four-letter words evoke a strong response, generally. And hope is that kind of word for me. It evokes a strong response. On one hand, I want to argue with it. At one therapist’s office, their slogan was ‘There is hope,’ and I wanted to take their cute, nicely designed marketing materials, often a coffee mug or such, and hurl it against a wall and say, ‘That’s what I think of your slogan.’ Yeah, hope is a four-letter word. It evokes a bit of response in me.
Of course that should tell you something about me: wrapped in cynicism and fury, a broiling rage coursing through my veins – this ‘me’ is sometimes quiet and hidden, compliant and cooperative. But not always. Sometimes the cynic takes aim at the word ‘hope’ and shatters it in pieces and says, ‘Now what are ya gonna do?’ How can hope win against such a force…against such an honest soul…against one who laughs at its audacity? For hope to present itself, it is as if the gauntlet is thrown down and says, ‘I dare you to try me.’
It takes courage to test hope. I say ‘test’ because that’s the starting point. And beginning anything requires courage. In fact, hope cannot exist without courage; without the courageous. And I am reminded that courage has at its root the French word, ‘Coeur’ which means ‘Heart.’ I must involve my heart if I am to courageously hope. And my heart is what has more often than not been more like those shattered pieces of hope than anything else. That’s why when I see the word ‘hope’ I inwardly cringe. It’s as if it invites me to try it out, and I tell it, ‘But I lack the courage. My heart is too weak.’
Scripture lines up hope in a list of what I call ‘special virtues’. There are whole lists of basic virtues, but then there are the BIG THREE: Faith, hope, and love. There’s no doubt that love is the greatest, and because of that fact, it gets a lot of attention. Faith also gets a pretty fair shake as far as what people write about, talk about, focus on. But hope is sometimes swept aside. Maybe because others react to it the same way I do? Maybe others want to hurl it against a wall and ignore the challenge. Maybe others don’t know what to do with it and would rather make a pretty wall-hanging with it. I’m sure an artist could do some fancy lettering and make it sparkle, somehow.
Of all the virtues, hope is the one that feels a bit like grit under my skin. I can have faith, I can even love, I can exercise patience, peace, joy, self-control. But ask me to hope and I run for cover. I just can’t seem to do it. Is there some kind of guide, self-help manual, or special hope-guru who can tell me, ‘This is how you build hope…’?
You may wonder why my reaction is so strong. You may not wonder – you may know deep in your bones what I’m talking about. Hope is so scary because it requires vulnerability: the ability to be wounded. I look at my own wounds and tell God, ‘These wounds cannot take another hit. They are too raw, too fragile. If I hope, I leave these wounds unprotected. Can you give me a pass on the hope thing?’ And God doesn’t let me take a pass, because He gives me all I need to enter the scary, enter the vulnerable places, enter the unexplored, the unknown, the potential pain and says, ‘You enter with Me at your side.’ Now there’s something I can hope in. The very presence of God at my side. And my courage is kindled, and I begin to open myself to the possibility of hope. The door of my soul has opened just a crack.
The Apostle Paul throws the word hope into almost everything he writes. It’s like he is almost obsessed with it. I don’t always appreciate this, but since I take his writings as inspired and God’s purposeful revelation, I must pay attention; surely, there is something I need if I am to enter hope, this mysterious dark wing of the castle of my heart. Paul tells us, ‘Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.’ Ugh. Another hard word: patience. Can we stick with just one for now?! Hope and patience are inextricably linked. If we enter hope, we enter waiting. Hope IS waiting. Waiting requires patience. And I am impatient!
Paul also tells us that hope develops in us a kind of character, a persevering nature. I went to look up the word ‘hope’ in Scripture and as I scrolled through, there was a long list in the book of Job. ‘Of course. It figures,’ I thought to myself. Job is all about suffering, and there we get oodles of ‘hope’ references. There’s another link: hope and suffering. I’ve already seen the link between hope and courage, hope and vulnerability, hope and patience. Now I see there’s hope and suffering!? Do you see what exploring hope involves!? It involves us going into dark places, hard places, places where we have given up, places we may rather not go.
Paul, in Romans 5.3, tells us something about hope – he gives us a clue as to where hope comes from: it comes from suffering, perseverance, and character. These are words we’re almost too familiar with: suffering is experiencing pain that continues and drives us to dependence on God. Perseverance is living under something unpleasant and difficult and continuing to put one foot in front of the other: it is not giving up in the face of adversity. Character sounds like eating your veggies as a kid. It sounds like health food that tastes like sawdust. It sounds noble and right and good, but also tedious, boring, and ho-hum. But that isn’t what character is. It is strength and fortitude and dignity and honor and worth and growth and integrity. Character is being the self God created me to be. It is anything but milque-toast! Somehow the word ‘character’ doesn’t appeal to me, much like the word ‘hope.’ But perhaps I’ve misunderstood it. At least, if I’m going in the direction of hope, I’ll need to develop some.
Paul must’ve known hope would be difficult for some…like me. Because he answers my fears and objections, anticipating how I might cringe from the thought. What makes hope so vulnerable? It is the fear of disappointment. I can tell God honestly, “I struggle with hope because I’ve been disappointed before. It leaves me hurting, wounded, suffering! If I have hope – for anything really – it means I open myself up to more hurt and disappointment! So can we just agree to let this one go? I can live in my cynicism. It’s like a dark, life-less dungeon, but at least it’s predictable, right?” And God again does not change His word. It still stares back at me and tells me this very reassuring promise: Hope does not disappoint.
Really? Hope does not disappoint.
Why is that? “Because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.”
So, faith, hope, and love are inextricably linked. I cannot hope without the reassurance of God’s love. It dispels my fear; it takes me on a journey. It assures me I am accompanied, that the Holy Spirit fills my life with whispers of grace. I am loved, therefore, I can hope.
So I’ll welcome that gauntlet, that grit under my skin. I’ll entertain the uninvited guest: the hope that comes knocking on my door. I’ll boldly drink deep at the well of God’s abundant love, shored up by His outpouring of grace in my life, and I’ll dare to hope.
That withering cynic hiding in the dungeon of my soul just may have to come out of hiding. The predictable darkness may just be vanquished by the bold daring of the courageous hopeful and hidden self.
Charles Wesley writes in his compelling hymn, ‘And Can it be?
’**(for instructions on how to sing this hymn, see the addendum below)
Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast-bound in sin and nature’s night.
Thine eye diffused a quick’ning ray. I woke, the dungeon flamed with light.
My chains fell off, my heart was free; I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
Amazing Love, how can it be!? That Thou my God shouldst die for me!
What is that “quick’ning ray” Wesley speaks of? I believe it is hope. The hope only God can give. The hope that gives life.
And just like that, I realize hope is not something I do. It isn’t something I muster. It isn’t even something I can fully grasp or explain. It simply IS. Hope is unleashed by the powerful working of God in me. It is given to me by God. It is assured by His love and presence. And that’s something I can live with. It’s something I dare not live without.
**(For this hymn to have the greatest impact, a congregation needs to sit and sing it until this stanza. Their hands must be crossed at the wrists. At the line ‘My chains fell off’ each one must pull their wrists apart, and at the line, ‘I rose’, all must stand. When we engage our bodies this way, to enact the words of the hymn, we imprint on our bodies and minds and hearts the truths of this song.)**
