Hope is the alternative to what we see. When life takes a turn that we did not expect, hope offers a new route, a new chance, a new expectancy that something good will come out of this. There is nothing wrong with hope; hope is the anticipation that we will be surprised at the arrival of what we expect will happen. We hope for healing, we hope for love, we hope for reconciliation, we hope because hope is the anchor of the soul. But for there to be a hope of something greater, something better than what we face now, there has to be something that has pushed us to the brink of hopelessness. Depending on your personal disposition of life, we are heavily invested in hopelessness or hopefulness. Facing the seemingly impossible can bear a heavy weight on us—and honestly, hoping can be the same way. Either way we choose, we have no choice left but to wait. We are either waiting for the best or the worst thing to happen, but how we handle that waiting determines if we will have joy or not. Unfortunately, joy is not a right, it’s in actuality a privilege. We forfeit joy each time settle for hopelessness, each time we lose ourselves in our heads, each time we feel as though “it” is winning. We forfeit joy each time we forget who God is and what He is able to do. If Guided by Grace is still a place of authenticity, I must confess that joy is hard sometimes. I know God is able, but what if He is not willing? What if the last time was the last time? What if He says “no,” what does that mean for me now?
“What if” kills our hope and ultimately robs us of joy.
When faced with the impossible, it is best to go with what you know about God and trust that. Over and over He has shown that He is able to do the impossible. God will take us to the brink of destruction to show us He can redeem and restore every lost cause. He specializes in finding what is lost. What do you know about God? Meditate on that. Ponder that in your heart. Journal about it. Pray on it. That is one of the most important questions we will ever unpack. What you know about God helps adopt a belief system that is effective and efficient. This is seen in the life of Jesus repeatedly. Jesus knew God was able to do all things (Mark 10:27). Each time He prayed He gave thanks to God; Jesus trusted the story God was telling through humanity and He trusted God’s will more than His own desires. Jesus trusted God’s will enough to give up what He wanted to continue doing: living.
Part of the reason Jesus could trust God so intensely is because He was filled with hope and anticipation that God could keep every promise. As we can see from how stressed and anxious Jesus was in the garden of Gethsemane, knowing that He would not stay dead did not ease Him for what He was about to endure. It is common and natural to know God is able and still wrestle with emotions and thoughts on where He places us. Jesus knew God’s will called for Him to die and be raised to life again, but anxiety and stress were still present. The truth of the matter is this: there is no such thing as resurrection from the dead unless something dies first. The greatest hope we can have is that somehow and someway God can raise us back to life.
What has God called you to lay to rest? What is God teaching you in this moment concerning what has died? For me, it is hope. It is hope that God is as intentional about the bad things that happens as He is about bringing forth the good. The most meaningful thing things in life are produced as a result of struggle. There is a hope that we must have, that Jesus showed by even willing to die. I wholeheartedly believe that each step Jesus took with His cross on His shoulders, God was walking in front of Him, leading Him. While that sounds good, following God can be too much at times; Jesus collapsed three times while carrying His cross. God’s will can be wearisome and dehydrating, even Jesus cried out, “I’m thirsty” (John 19:28). Yet, Jesus got up the fourth time because the hope of resurrection comes from death.
Hope does not mean that everything will pan out how we want them to. What it does is illustrate a life desiring to please God, and that is counted to us as righteousness. The righteous live by faith (Habakkuk 2:4) and only the righteous shall see God (Matthew 8:8). The reality of the death of Jesus is that because He was obedient to death God rewarded Him by raising Him from the dead. Jesus did not want to die, it was not His will, but because He chose God’s will over His own desires. God gave Jesus what He wanted: He will never die again. Not only did God give Jesus what He wanted, He gave it to Him by renewing and restoring Him. This is the story of hope. This is the story of our faith that we serve a God who can do abundantly more than we can imagine. This holiday season, may our hearts be filled with hope that God can and God will. That is the only alternative that leads to joy.
Until next time, continue to stay guided by grace,
Tra
Guided by Grace 