Hope

 

From the time I was a young child, I remember habitually praying each night before closing my eyes to go to sleep.   

“Now I lay me down to sleep.  I pray the Lord my soul to keep.  If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.  God, please bless ____” -here, I would insert the names of family and friends, and then I would add this little part: “and, please keep us all safe, healthy, and happy.  Amen.”

I had determined that safety, good health and happiness were the keys to a good life and signs of God’s blessings.  These were the things for which I hoped.

For many years, God gave me what I asked for and my family was indeed safe, healthy, and happy.  Unlike so many others I knew, I grew up in a loving home with both parents. Everyone was healthy and we had more than what we needed.  Most of the time, I felt happy.

However, I always had a sense that something (or someone) was missing.  Though we went to church regularly, I felt like God was distant, like a relative who lived in another state and who I barely knew.  A relative I liked perhaps, but had never spent much time with.

By the time I reached my mid-thirties, the “easy” life I had always enjoyed began to unravel. My husband, daughter, parents, in-laws, and me entered into a long season of physical hardships laced with various illnesses and diseases.   Here are just a few of the highlights:

·        In late 2006 through 2007, my mother-in-law was diagnosed with breast cancer.

·        The next year, my mother required quadruple bypass heart surgery.

·        Also in 2008, a venous malformation in my husband’s calf required a specialized surgery.   

·        In 2009, my only daughter was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.

·        The next year, 2010, she was diagnosed with Celiac (another chronic, autoimmune illness)

·        Between 2011-2014, squamous and basal skin cancers required me to have 5 separate MOHS surgeries.  I also contracted shingles. 

·        In addition, during those years, my husband fought severe cases of flu, E Coli, and CDIF and we discovered a hidden issue in my daughter’s spine.

·        In 2014, my mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, stage 3, and spent nearly 40 days in the hospital after an extensive surgery and near fatal infection. 

·        Also, in 2014 I underwent surgery to repair an abdominal hernia and my daughter ended up at the ER on a vacation with Diabetic complications which led to PTSD, panic attacks and anxiety.

·        In 2016, both my daughter and I got the flu (on vacation). 

·        And in 2016, my father-in-law began fighting pulmonary fibrosis, asbestosis, COPD, and asthma.

·        Somewhere during those same years, my mother- in- law endured 3 painful back surgeries and my mother had a hernia repair.

·        In 2019, my daughter was one of the first to contract a very serious case of COVID, complete with a horrendous kidney infection and rash.

·        In 2020, my husband had an extremely painful boil/ abscess followed by a case of shingles.

·        Also in 2020, after more than 12 years of physical attacks - ‘deadly pestilence and disease that stalks in the darkness’ (described in Psalm 91) – we were faced with violence, addiction, abuse, and betrayal…” terrors of the night, arrows that fly by day, disasters that strike at noon.”

·        In 2021, we have faced multiple health emergencies with our daughter including several unexplained fevers, diabetic ketoacidosis, and hypoglycemia which required an ambulance ride to the ER.

·        Also in 2021, my father-in-law passed away.

It wears me out just to read this list.  Perhaps you too have a story like this.  If so, you know that it is not easy to keep getting back up when you feel like you can’t catch a break.  When you feel the weariness of travelling through the ‘Valley of the Shadow of Death’ for long seasons.  Even the most optimistic of us – the ones who insist the glass is half full – can get discouraged when the waves keep crashing into us just as we feel our feet almost firmly planted again.

Right now, I have to admit that my body is tired.  But I know what I must do if I am to overcome these trials.  I must rely completely on the Lord.  I must hang on tight to my lifeline.

So, each morning, famished for the daily bread that satisfies my hunger, I go through the scriptures as if I am at a buffet, adding so much to my plate that things are stacked up on top of each other, spilling over the sides.  Like that plate of food, my soul is heavy and I know I must be careful with it. 

But I taste and see that the Lord is good.  He is the bread of life.  And His Word reminds me that God is in control and He is working ALL things out for good for me and for all of us who love Him.  It reminds me that though this world is indeed broken by the devastating consequences of sin (i.e., death), my home, and my life for all of eternity, is secure because of what Jesus did for me.  And finally, it reminds me that I am one with Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit.  He is with me, in me, and for me. 

The moment I speak this truth out loud, something mysterious happens in an unseen realm and I am strengthened, encouraged, and inspired by hope to persevere, refusing to let my heart be troubled, sustained by grace for another day, despite my heavy load. 

But the battle intensifies again at night as I lie vulnerable to exhaustion and attempt to sleep while simultaneously fighting the enemies of fear and worry with semi-conscious scripture-based prayer.  Awake then asleep, alert then unaware, sweating then shivering, I toss and turn through the night as if travelling through the stages of sleep on a roller coaster which has continued for more than a decade, an insane paradox of euphoria and terror. 

Those of you who find yourself in a similar position understand this conundrum.  And if you have been following Christ for a while, you know the journey includes suffering and suffering isn’t easy no matter how spiritually mature you are.  Suffering is hard. 

Jesus wept (John 11:35).  Out of compassion and grief, Jesus who knew Lazarus’ life was not over, cried with his heartbroken friends over the death of their brother.  He entered into their grief and sorrow with them, and with all of humanity, fully aware of the misery which accompanies sin and death.

But nothing compares to the suffering Luke recorded in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Out of sheer anguish, Jesus cried out to His Father – his soul overcome with sorrow to the point of death…asking Him to take the cup of suffering from Him … asking Him if there was any other way.  (Luke 22:42).  

Jesus knew what was ahead.  He knew how hard it was going to get.  He knew the physical pain, the emotional torment, the humiliation, the betrayal, and the spiritual isolation from His Father.  He suffered in every way.  And in His flesh, He did not want to. 

But ultimately, He chose to obey His Father.  He surrendered Himself and sacrificed His life for me and for you!!!  And God watched His only beloved Son hanging on that cross, being fully able to stop it.  Yet HE did not. 

Because there was a plan.  Out of God’s love for us, He sent Jesus to ransom us – to pay the price of our sin that we were unable to pay.  After Jesus died, I feel sure the enemy thought that he had won.  But three days, Jesus resurrected from the dead and revealed Himself to hundreds of people over the next forty days, proving His victory!  Glory to the Lord!

The surrender, sacrifice, and suffering of Jesus is what saved me.  And yet I admit that in my flesh, I don’t want to suffer nor do I want my loved ones to suffer.  So, I find myself doing the same thing that Jesus did:

“Father, please take this cup of suffering away from me and from my loved ones.  Yet not my will but yours, Abba (Daddy).  Because I know Your will is better than mine, Elohim. You are the ONE TRUE GOD, the GREAT I AM (Yahweh).  Your thoughts and ways are higher than mine.  You know things I do not.  You can see things I cannot.  You are El Roi.  The God who sees…who cares and who acts on my/our behalf.  And you have a good plan, El Elyon, Most High, Sovereign God.  I trust you beyond what I can understand, Yahweh Jireh.  You provide everything I need.  So, fill me with YOUR PEACE, Yahweh Shalom, El Shaddai (Nothing is too difficult for you), Yahweh Rophe (my healer), Adonai (my master), Yahweh Nissi (my victory).  Fill me with your sufficient grace and power which is made perfect in my weakness.”

No, I don’t want to suffer.  However, I know that there is something discovered, gained, and astonishingly beautiful that can only be found in the midst of suffering.  That something is really a someone: Jesus.  That is where He is.  Smack dab in the middle of debilitating pain and hopelessness.  Because there is NO better candidate for a miracle than the person who is there.

The scriptures teach us that when we share in Jesus’ suffering on the cross, we also share in His glory which is our eternal, abundant life.  Hope is the bridge that connects the two and enables us to be reconciled with our Heavenly Father. 

But what is hope?

Hope is when you want something to happen and believe it could.  It is an optimistic wish, such as - 

“I hope it snows on Christmas day this year.” 

“I hope I find something to wear this weekend to the party.”

or a dream, such as –

“I hope I get to go to Greece someday.”

or a longing, such as -

“I hope my doctor does not find anything wrong during my exam.”

“I hope my child grows up into a Jesus following adult.”

Webster defines hope as a “desire accompanied by expectation of or belief in fulfillment.” So, by definition, hope is a risk, a maybe, an uncertainty. 

Perhaps this explains our hesitant reluctance toward it.  After all, we don’t want to be disappointed.  We don’t want to get our hopes up only to be let down.   So, we protect ourselves (or at least we believe that is what are doing) and hang on tight to our desires and expectations, paying careful attention to where we place our hope. 

As. We. Should.

Because the truth is, we have a powerful, spiritual enemy.  Jesus calls this enemy the Father of Lies, a thief who comes to steal, kill, and destroy us: the devil.

This enemy works very hard to deceive us into placing our hope in things that WILL let us down (like ourselves, our circumstances, and other people).  He is relentless in his pursuit to convince us that ‘chance’ has better odds than faith, that the glass is actually half empty, and that disappointment is part of the game of life which we must simply “suck up, buttercup.”  He very cleverly accuses us of being naïve, gullible, silly, paranoid, even intolerant and mean in His attempt to destroy us.

But God has a response to this enemy and it is Jesus.  With Jesus, we don’t worry about the odds or improbability because we know that we have what we ask for (1 John 5:14-15) in His perfect way and time.  With Jesus, our glass is not half empty but our cup overflows in the presence of our enemies (Psalm 23:5).

With Jesus, our disappointments become God appointments to overcome the enemy and even bring others along across the bridge of HOPE to abundant life. Abundant life.  Isn’t that what we are all hoping for?

What does hope of abundant life look like?  It is the hope of my salvation made possible by Jesus.  It is hope in Jesus. He paid the penalty for my sins – and the sins committed against me - which produces peace and joy regardless of what is going on in my circumstances.  It is perfect love, which drives out fear.  The 1 Corinthians 13 kind of love.  Patient.  Kind.  Not boasting.  Not keeping track of mistakes, or records of wrongs.  Always persevering, always trusting, always protecting, and never failing.

 

Let’s look at what the Bible says about hope.

1. HOPE is a gift from God.

·        “Praise be to the God and Father of My Lord, Jesus Christ!  In His great mercy, He has given me new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead; and an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade.  This inheritance is kept in heaven for me, who through faith is shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.  In all of this, I greatly rejoice, though now for a little while I may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.”  (1 Peter 1: 3-6.)

·        “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord, “plans not to harm you but to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

 

2.  HOPE manifests in the spiritual realm.

·        “May the eyes of my heart be enlightened in order that I may know the hope to which you have called me, the riches of your glorious inheritance, Lord.”  (Ephesians 1:18). 

·        “Reveal to me the mystery – which is Christ IN ME, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). 

·        “And hope will not disappoint me because God has poured out His love into my heart through the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 5:5)

 

3.  HOPE is received through the gift of suffering.

·        “There’s far more to this life that trusting in Christ.  There’s also suffering for him.  And the suffering is as much a gift as the trusting.” (Philippians 1:28-29 THE MESSAGE)

·        “Suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character, character produces HOPE,” (Romans 5:3-4). 

·        “Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared o the glory he will reveal to us later.  For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his Children really are.  Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse.  But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join Gods’ children in glorious freedom from death and decay.”  (Romans 8:18-21)

·        “And 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.” (Romans 8:23) 

·        “We rejoice in our trials because the testing of our faith produces endurance, and endurance must do its complete work in us, so that we are mature and complete, lacking nothing.” (James 1: 2-4). 

 

4.  HOPE provides strength, inspiration, and assurance to endure and persevere.

·        “Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide, we might have hope” (Romans 15:4)

·        “Let my work be produced by faith, my labor prompted by love, and my endurance inspired by hope in Jesus.” (1 Thessalonians 1:3)

·        “Those who hope in you will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles.  They will run and not grow weary.  They will walk and not grow faint.”  (Isaiah 40:31)

·        “Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death.  But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.  He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again.  On Him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us.” (2 Corinthians 1:9-10)

·        “A horse is a false hope for victory; Nor does it deliver anyone by its great strength.  Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him, on those who hope for His lovingkindness.” Psalm 33:17-18

 

5.  HOPE is the conduit to supernatural peace and joy which surpasses understanding.

·        “May the God of Hope fill you with all joy and all peace as you trust in Him, and may you overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”  (Romans 15:13)

·        “May you be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer.” (Romans 12:12)

·        “Oh, that I might have my request, that God would grant what I hope for!” (Job 6:8)

·        “I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall.  I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.  Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope:  Because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”  (Lamentations 3:19-23)

 

6.  HOPE -> His (Jesus) One sacrifice Pays for peace and Eternal life for me and you.

·        “For it is by grace you have been saved through faith” (Ephesians 2:8).

·        “Faith is confidence in what we hope for and the assurance about what we do not see (Hebrews 11:1).

·        “We were given this hope when we were saved.  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.” (Romans 8:24-25).

·        “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful.” (Hebrews 10:23)

·        “…those who hope in me will not be disappointed.” (Isaiah 49:23)

·        “The Lord delights in those who fear Him, who put their hope in His unfailing love!” (Psalm 147:11)

·        “God will never forget the needy; the hope of the afflicted will never perish.”  (Psalm 9:18)

·        “That is why we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe.” (1 Timothy 4:10)

·        “…in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago.” (Titus 1:2)