Where Does Your Hope Come From?

One year ago yesterday, a beautiful life left this world.  She took some spunk and spark and joy out with her that God has been faithful to show still blooms in the midst of the void left behind.  But it has been a long, slow, grueling year of choosing to look for joy and holding fast to what I found.

And somewhere in the midst of the void left behind, I have found blooming joy is full of the fragrance of hope.

Hope.  Hope anew.  Hope rising.  Fragile and virile and fragrant.  Hope. Hope in a God that makes all things new (Revelation 21:5). Hope that there truly is life after death, death of any kind (2 Corinthians 1:10).  Hope that one day things will get better, be brighter.  Hope.  It fills the soul and lightens the weight of the world.  Joy blooms and Hope fills life with sweetness and desire and the aroma of what's to come.

So I ask you, where does your hope come from?  In what do you place your hope?  When you make a statement like, ‘I hope everything turns out all right,’ or ‘I hope things will be different,’ or ‘I hope he/she makes a different choice,’ what exactly are you hoping in when you make those statements?

Is it just a flippant desire you throw out into the universe?  Is it a dependence on positive thinking will result in positive outcomes?  Is your hope grounded in fate, destiny, good karma?  What is hope to you?  And where do you believe it originates?

Because hope is a powerful, powerful thing.  Hope raises the phoenix from the ashes.  Hope is the life preserver for the sinking soul.  Hope makes another day worth living. Hope is the difference between a life lived anew and a life wasted.  Hope is power. 1 Corinthians 13:13a lists, "But now faith, hope, love, abide these three." Abide in these three is our command.  Maybe because the power to change life as we know it abides in these three?

So if hope is this powerful, it begs the question from where does it originate its power?  Some would argue hope comes from within.  It is the gumption, the force of the will to press on and be better, do better.  But then, if this is true, then hope originates within myself, and goodness me, I am nothing.  I am flawed.  I am mistaken. I am weak.  I am powerless.  Heaven help me if hope comes from within me!  I am only human. If anyone’s hope is based on me or anyone else from the human race, we are lost already.  Doomed to be disappointed and left hopeless because everyone will fail us at some point in time, including ourselves.

Some would argue hope comes from a higher source, a spiritual essence, a fated destiny of the universe, but this is so ethereal, so slippery and uneasy and fleeting.  It is a faith in something unseen and unproven and unsubstantiated. (My faith may be unseen, but it is not unproven or unsubstantiated, an important difference to note.)  This kind of hope is seated in the mind of the believer, not the heart, and my friends, I have proven that my mind is a throne room for the lies of the Deceiver at times. It can too easily be led astray by the latest cultural line of thought, the latest fad that creates an emotional connection.  Emotions can be just as deceiving.

No, truth lies in one Person.  I have found joy to bloom in the presence of one Person (Psalm 16:11).  And in my study of the resurrection of Christ this past Easter, I have found hope to be embodied and originated in one Person.  The Person of Jesus Christ, the Creator Son of God who lives.  

WHO IS ALIVE!

Did you hear me?  My Jesus lives!  And the reality of that truth is the origin of hope.  As my BSF leader pointed out, for every other religion that revolves around a single person, there is a grave with a body laying in it.  Not mine.  Not my Jesus.  His grave is empty (Matthew 28:5-6).  The linens that wrapped His body were neatly folded to the side (John 20:7). The stone in front of his tomb was rolled away.  It was being guarded by Roman soldiers who would have given their lives to do their duty, and instead they were left paralyzed in fear by an earthquake and angels come to proclaim the good news that Jesus was alive!  He was alive and seen in the days after His resurrection by more than 500 different people (1 Corinthians 15:6) over a period of 40 days (Acts 1:3).  He was touched.  He ate food.  He was/He is alive!!!

Do you understand what that means?  In Him alone is Hope of life after death.  His resurrection required a power no one else in the history of mankind can claim.  He raised Himself from the dead.  Now that is real power.  Ultimate power.  True power over life and death.  And in that power, His believers can truly hope.  The origin of my hope can be the power of Christ Himself, the power of a God who can raise not just others, but Himself from the dead.  In Him alone, my hope is real and true and powerful.  It is based on a perfect Person, the Big Creator God, not a thought or emotion or idea or the good intentions of others.

When I say to someone, “I hope it works out for you,” I can honestly mean, “I believe the God who raised Himself from the dead is capable of working things out for you,” because that’s truth, and that’s where my hope comes from.  Where does yours?

Because at the end of the day, when life sucks and is hard and the ones you love are suffering or have died and left this earth, is belief in yourself really powerful enough to get you through the day, to keep you from falling into despair? Job 8:13b states matter-of-factly, 'The hope of the godless will perish.'  It seems the one sure way to have no hope is to have no God, no risen Savior.

Is it really your family and friends that give you hope? Or is it the God of your family and friends that is secretly, silently leaking hope into your life through them? 

Is the universe, your destiny, your fate where your hope originates?  Or is it the God who created this universe and determines your days from the moment of conception that instills hope into your life? (Psalm 139)

We are only human.  We need to be careful to stop attributing what is God’s alone to our own thoughts and innovations.  We have nothing that He has not chosen to give or entrust us with.  We are nothing without Him.  I am nothing, and He is everything, and that is more than enough to bring joy and let hope rise.

I once stated that as a believer and follower of Christ we are the only real Joy people will experience in this life, everything else is a fake.  I come to you proposing the same is true of Hope.  Without a risen Savior, a God who has power over life AND death, people have no real hope because their hope has no real power. 

Their positive thoughts can change nothing, but a God who raises Himself from the dead can change everything.

So to all the skeptics, I write here to offer a true source of Hope, of Joy, of Love, of Life.  I ask you to consider who Jesus Christ really is, who He might really be to you because if you are looking for Hope in your life, you need look no further.

And if you truly believe Him to be who He says He is, then why aren’t we more willing to throw off the sins of all that entangles us and hold fast to the feet of Jesus and just let Him live through us?  I need to stop over-thinking and over-analyzing, and just be His child.  Be at His feet like the women at the feet of their risen Lord, clinging in worship, waiting for His instruction to go and tell (Matthew 28:9).

Because Love should be our driving purpose.  Joy should fuel the vehicle of our love, and Hope is the power, the energy created in the process that keeps a body in motion, keeps us able to move forward and onward, always pressing toward the finish line.

Hope is powerful.

And the hope of seeing my Savannah Veale again one day (and all those I love who have gone on before me, for that matter), spurs me on deeper into the heart of a God I can’t live without.

"And in His name the Gentiles will hope" (Matthew 12:21)---Yes, yes they will.  Yes, I do.