This post was written a couple weeks ago. I am tempted to not allow it to go "live" here on my site. Why? Because my own battle to hold to hope - real, deep, enduring hope, is a battle that is raging today. It would be easier to not share something that I'm struggling to apply to my life.
But I'm daring to share this post anyway. Maybe it will encourage you, maybe not. But it WILL challenge me to continue my own fight to choose hope...
If you were to share a need with me, I’d find it pretty easy to believe and to have hope that God would faithfully provide that need.
BUT…I battle with cynicism when it comes to having that same hope for my own needs. Especially when those needs reflect the really personal matters of my heart. So I wasn’t pleased when I read an article challenging me that it is crucial to hold on to hope in the really personal matters!
My gut response? “Hah! Hope brings frustration and guarantees disappointment. Hope and be hurt!”
Five Minutes of Hope???
Then I got broadsided by this thought. “OK, so why don’t you dare to hold on to hope for the next five minutes? Just to see what happens.”
When I resist making a healthy choice, a friend frequently challenges me to do the opposite of what I feel like doing. Well, I certainly didn’t feel like hoping at the moment. But I knew it was the right choice. So, following my friend’s counsel, I accepted the “dare”, checked the time on my phone (I didn’t want to run over five minutes!) and began hoping.
I first told God that I was hoping in His goodness and love. For some reason that immediately reminded me of Abraham. I told God that I considered Abraham’s love for his son Issac to be a positive example of a father’s good heart.
God then gently pointed something out to me:
Abraham’s heart for his son was best demonstrated by his belief and hope in God’s promises for both himself and his son.
And there it was…
The root of my cynicism was exposed.
My own dad was a very hard worker who lived by this mantra, “I’ll just get along the best I can”. His life showed little expectant hope and anticipation in God’s promises. He did not model expectancy to his family. Probably more than I realized, I’d lived under the shadow of my dad’s attitude, which greatly limited my capacity to hope.
A parent whose lifestyle demonstrates little hope in God’s promises adds to his children’s battle to believe in God’s goodness for their own lives.
I want my life to count for more than what little I can achieve by “getting along the best I can”. And that desire requires hope in something – Someone – far bigger and stronger than I will ever be.
As a believer in Jesus Christ, I know that He is my only true source of hope.
My five minutes were up.
Although the time was up, I continued talking with God about hope. He encouraged me that although my dad did not model confidence in His promises, God, my perfect Father, is fully confident in the promises He has spoken over my life.
Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. (James 1:17)
For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ…. Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. (2 Corinthians 1:20-22)
What am I trying to say? God is showing me that my cynicism towards hope is the route all too easily taken because of another’s wounds. But the opposite is what I need; hope in God’s promises which heals the wounds of hopelessness and defeats cynicism’s unbelief.
I have a choice when tempted with cynicism.
I am choosing the different route.
I am choosing hope.
Will you?
Love your writing style, Mark! it made me chuckle in the midst of recognizing that you are spot on. This comment “my cynicism towards hope is the route all too easily taken because of another’s wounds” is powerful! it is something that I recently learned in a different area for myself – that the shame that I live with and fight is not even mine but my moms… crazy stuff here. but reading yours affirmed my journey again… and i love the way God met you. also, the reality that your dad lived with put into words for me again what I have seen in my dad … i watched him try to hope and then turn really cynical. I knew I didn’t want to go there, but hoping does kind of guarantee hurting and when we want to go through life avoiding pain, then it IS a good idea not to hope. So, I am learning how to be okay with living with pain when it comes. and to believe that hope will not always end in pain. Thanks, Mark.
Crystal, I’m so glad that this helped you process a bit of your own journey!
Speaking of writing styles, you’ve got a good way with words too…. just sayin!!! 🙂
“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” ~ Ephesians 3:20-21
I love that God is willing and able to do IMMEASURABLY more than what we can ask, imagine, or hope for. There are some days when I just can’t see how something will ever happen. Even my optimistic self has trouble seeing any hope. 🙂 Then God drops a solution, a twist… something amazing right into the middle of it, proving again that our hope is well-placed in Him.
This post was well-timed, as today I’m struggling to see how in the world something really important is going to work. It started to feel hopeless. So I took your challenge. Thank you, my friend.
Jennifer, thank you for sharing those Ephesians 3 verses. Thinking about your struggle to see how something really important is going to work out, and thinking about those things that tempt me to feel hopeless; I’m forced to admit that without those “big things”, none of us would experience the joy of seeing God “do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine”.
Perhaps that’s the fruit of the victory of the battle!
Ahhh true. The “big things” are definitely faith-builders as we see God come through for us! I love it when He goes beyond what we can imagine.