Hope
Do you know we all have a sword we can use against depression and discouragement? And it doesn’t purely depend on external circumstances and realities?
We do, and you do.
It is the ability to hope beyond hope, and to believe beyond belief, provided it is based in the truth of God’s unchanging love towards us, and based in the truth that hope can remain and be true regardless of our feelings and appetites.
Just because things that are unpleasant happen to us does not mean that it is the eternal unchanging narrative that will write our lives outside of any control of ours.
If we have this sword within us to help us change against things that feel unchanging… why is it that often we don’t use it?
I feel a great deal of the choice not to choose, and to not choose hope in turn is because we want to be the problem. We want to be the blame. There is a strange comfort that comes from allowing a final definition, however wrong, from someone else’s perspective to describe who and what we are, where we were and are going, and why we are such.
Or perhaps it is the fear that comes from understanding that we are very much the writers of our lives. Provided we act, we can write different endings than those which we feel stuck in, and there constantly is the opportunity to choose.
We are better off choosing. We are better off failing in our choices. We are better off experiencing life stumbling as the result of us trying to be better, and to become more excellent as people, than to go through the decades being a potato and not choosing to participate in our own existences.
Anger against obstacles can be fuel to try harder, and to re-evaluate our approaches towards things. To be angry enough to hope, and humble enough to act even when you do not feel powerful… this is how you blaze a trail in front of you, behind you, and one day look back and go “holy smokes… I did it.”
Christ and you did indeed do it. He did it before the world began.
And guess what… so did you, so did I, so did all.
To live out the victory already won in hope is not easy, but is it truly worth doing the easy thing, that is just existing with dreams, aspirations, and hopes untouched?
To me, I cannot speak for other people, this is a living death. To consist, exist, reason, and be without truly being. It is better to work towards a goal lacking motivation, lacking hope, lacking joy, because we hope in ourselves, hoping in a brighter future in Christ, hoping in hope and faith, all the while being faithful to our better selves. To me this is true life, this is truth, and this is the way of the way, the truth, and the life.
To hope in hope, to have faith in faith, and to love in love — regardless of whether or not we feel these things in the moment… this is the process and lifestyle that pays dividends, sharpens our skills, and gives us the grit to go in grace and healthy vulnerability.
Hope, for his pure hope wholly and solely does not fail.
