Hope

Hope is a hard thing. People use the word hope with a positive connotation, but doesn’t it seem to always come with a lot more negatives than positives. Actively hoping is recognizing something you do not have. To me, that is hard. 

We plaster this word onto walls, and it is supposed to make us smile. Yet at the end of the day- hope breeds eternal misery. 

I asked a lot of people what they thought hope meant, and created a list of some of their ideas: 

Hope is something you pay for, hope is not free. 

Hope is Trust- how can you hope if you do not trust. 

Hope is peace, that things are okay even in the bad. 

Hope is that in reality it may not happen, but you choose to believe in it anyways. 

Hope is vulnerable. 

Hope is a vase, full of potential and changing objects you dream of filling it with. 

Having Hope is hard. Presently hoping is also hard. You are dreaming of something you do not have yet. It is not an easy task. People have searched and suffered of this thing called hope for as long as history says. It reminds me of a verse in the Bible, Hebrews 11:11. 

“And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise.” 

Sarah hoped for what felt like an eternity for her. It is so easy to read that and think, well look it worked out for Sarah. Lucky for her. 

 But Sarah had to wait YEARS, over 2  Decades of years.

 The years that Sarah had to wait were not spent excited and knowing that she would meet this baby boy. She had to trust. Sometimes she failed, just like we do. She sent Abraham off with Hagar, and still had to wait over a decade to have her son  Isaac. Sarah is just as human as us, and it wasn’t easy for her. 

I would like to think that Sarah learned she was dealing with being hopeful with the God of the Universe. And that she sat knowing that he does fulfill his promises. Sometimes though, in the middle of the hurt and pain and confusion, it is incredibly hard. 

 Us, looking in thinking it’s silly Sarah did not trust and hope in the Lord for all these years, but we do the same thing. We are talking about the God who created Hope. The God who is hope. That speaks volumes.  Here is the thing. He knows the desires of your heart. He knows the things you long for. He is aware. He is the God of all the emotions, the feelings, the seasons, and the phases. None of this surprises him. Part of hope is knowing who created it. 

There are days where you just have to sit in the hope. Sit in the hard and waiting. It will not get better overnight. I promise, the Hope of the Lord’s peace and the Lord’s plan is not one that will disappoint.