Hope is a tricky commodity. False hope can be comforting in the short term, but devastating if the outcome differs from what you desire. “Hope deferred makes the heart sick” (Proverbs 13:12), so waiting for a longing to be fulfilled is risking deep discouragement.
Still, hope is a godly, encouraging emotional position from which to view life. What does a healthy, realistic hope look like? It is interesting that Psalms admonishes us over and over again to “hope in the Lord” and “to hope in his word”. There is no chance of disappointment when our hope rests in him alone. Often we hope for such specific outcomes that any variation in the answer or any delay is disheartening. Satan will try to use variations and delays to attack our faith that God hears and cares.
I was once praying with a very heavy heart about a situation and trying to grasp some hope to settle my anxious heart. As I was praying, I told God, “I don’t even know what to hope for.” While his voice was not auditiory, I did “hear” him reply: “Why don’t you leave that to me?” The point was I didn’t need to figure out a solution to give God some ideas about how to fix things. Letting him know my sorrow and desire for a solution was enough. He could take care of the rest.
Combining hope with trust in an all-powerful and compassionate Father is the best way to have peace and joy. Abandoning a controlling position in which my desire is the only acceptable solution to ease my angst, is freeing in a wonderful way. It opens new faith-vistas and makes me rely on a God who can “do more than all we ask or imagine.” (Ephesians 3:20)
Linda Brumley is the author of the book My Beggar’s Purse and Other Spiritual Thoughts, and a blog of the same name. This article was originally published at http://mybeggarspurse.blogspot.com/2012/02/hope_13.html
Linda Brumley, along with her husband, Ron, has served in the ministry in San Diego, Chicago, Denver and Seattle. She is currently a women’s ministry leader in the Seattle Church of Christ. Her greatest joy in life is friends and family (four children and ten grandchildren). Because she feels so blessed to have learned from older women in her life, she hopes to offer that same blessing to young women that God enables her to influence for him.
