One of my favorite foundational principles of the Christian faith is the principle of hope. In fact, even before I really began pursuing Jesus I would have told you I placed a lot of value on hope because of all the many ways it could impact me and how I react to situations regardless of what the situation is. I’ve always liked to look at things on the brighter side because, why would I want to dwell on a gloomy future? Yes, I don’t want to take things too far and look past reality, but why not hope for the better rather than just sit in a disheartening present? Hope gives you something to look forward to; it allows you to look past the here and now and into a promising future. The here and now is passing; the future is to come. Hope lets me walk into a brighter future instead of an unchanged present.
And the best thing about hope is that it stays with you; no one can take it away from you. It’s one of the few things that can only be lost by your own choice and nothing else. No one takes away your hope…you give it up. So whether you lose your job, experience sickness, are thrown in prison, break-up with your girlfriend/boyfriend or whatever hardship that may come your way, you can always hold on to the hope that there’s another job for you, that you’ll be restored to health, set free, meet another person that better suits you, etc.
In addition to worldly examples we can also see this illustrated in the Scriptures. One example comes from Jeremiah, a prophet who prophesied destruction to Judah unless they turned from their evil ways. Throughout his life he experienced persecution, hardship, and loneliness as his message was strongly rejected by the people. Because of their rejection, Jerusalem ended up falling to the Babylonian empire and the people were carried into exile, including Jeremiah. But even in those painful and bleak circumstances where he lost everything, he was still able to write…
“Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope” Lamentations 3:21
It’s such a beautiful illustration that regardless of how much you’ve lost or how hard life is, you can still hold on to your hope and find strength from it. Job is another Biblical example of someone who held on to hope. I love his story because despite losing everything he had in life, from his family, to his possessions, to his health, he still remained true to the Lord because of his hope and faith in the unconditional and unending love of the Lord. (More on that later)
Seriously, what can you do to a person who has hope? I mean, this man lost everything he had (except for his nagging wife) and he was still able to find joy and hope in a brighter outcome. There was still the hope that something better was coming. If that doesn’t take hope away, I don’t think anything in life can.
Now even though hope is this awesome and beautiful thing, it is also very dangerous: because if you’re not careful, hope can lead to unrealistic expectations with no potential of being fulfilled. And that’s one of the most tragic things in this life: trusting/hoping in something that can never come true. There’s nothing worse than a hope that doesn’t end; the reason why hope is so beautiful is because it ends! That’s why you hope in the first place! So it’s important to place your hope in the right things.
There are endless things that people find hope in. Some find it in their job and financial security. Some find it in relationships. Some find it in fulfillment of sexual desires. Some find it in alcohol/drugs. Some find it in their children. Some find it in governments. Some find it in sports. Some find it in their own abilities. Some find it in religion. Regardless of what it is, this world offers many avenues of hope.
In the same way, Christianity offers hope, but unlike the world, it only has one avenue: Jesus Christ. And unlike the hope from the world, the Christian hope is not found in anything of this world because Jesus isn’t of this world. Now why is this important? It’s important because the things of this world are going to fail. In the end, they will all be made known as false hopes. It’s a fallen world that we live in: fallen because of sin. And as a result, everything of this world will fall. It will fail you. Therefore, we need something outside of this world if there is going to be any hope at all. (See Part 2 for the rest)
