“People speak of hope as if it is this delicate, ephemeral thing made of whispers and spider’s webs. It’s not. Hope has dirt on her face, blood on her knuckles, the grit of the cobblestones in her hair, and just spat out a tooth as she rises for another go.”
(I read this great quote on Instagram the other day that was reposted by someone else, originally by Matthew @CrowsFault.)
What a picture! So often we treat hope as if it is a concept that is rather silly and fantastical. We want something that seems more realistic, more tangible— but I don’t think these concepts of hope are true at all.
This last couple of weeks for me I have witnessed this picture of hope as it does battle with discouragement and despair. My daughter fell and broke both her wrists at basketball practice. She is such a fighter, and yet has days when she is sad about not being able to finish the season, about all she can’t do, about missing out on things because she is in pain or unable. But I have watched her fight through this to find hope, rising up to try again.
At the same time, a sweet friend has been fighting to recover from a brain event that has left her dependent on a walker to move and struggling through regaining function in much of her body. This picture of hope is exactly what I see when I think of this friend, fighting for her very life, rising up after a beat-down but trusting God to get her through and restore hope.
I don’t think having hope is ever easy. That’s one of the reasons I love working with the people I do, who choose to have hope after and during so much pain. It is a testimony to me that hope is a battle, an all-out fight to maintain trust and dependence on Jesus, while looking away from all that wants to pull us down to misery. It’s not pretty, lazy or what we expected it to look like. But hope pulls us through to fight again.
Hope is a warrior who leads us on into battle with a war cry echoing off the walls of despair. Hope storms in and demands that discouragement let go and leave us alone. Hope reminds us that we have a God, and we don’t have to be brave enough on our own. Hope helps us up off the ground, dusts us off and sends us back in with the strength of Jesus coursing through our veins.
That’s why Romans 5 (see below) talks about finding hope THROUGH pressures, not when things are easy. We don’t have to figure out how to do this ourselves, but instead simply look to the love of God cascading into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who lives in us—that’s where hope is found. And hope is not a disappointing fantasy, but a supernatural power that allows us to look to the future without fear for we know God is with us.
But that’s not all! Even in times of trouble we have joyful confidence, knowing that our pressures will develop in us patient endurance. And patient endurance will refine our character, and proven character leads us back to hope. And this hope is no disappointing fantasy, because we can now experience the endless love of God cascading into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who lives in us! Romans 5:3-5