I hope you're hopeful

I think spring is my favorite season. Right now, where I am from, there are people going to bed and looking forward to warmer tomorrows. Maybe it’s just because I hate winter so much, I’m not sure. I just know that when the first day comes that I can wear sandals and a t-shirt, I practically leap for joy. I think it’s all about a new beginning. The world was caught in slumber all winter preparing for this, now it’s time for summer. Let’s get crazy. It’s a hopeful season for the northern part of this rock. So let’s talk about hope.

We all claim to have it. We all love throwing that term carelessly around. ‘There is hope’, we say, with a furrowed brow and concern oozing from our persona. ‘I really hope that he doesn’t do that’, we say, in a sort of flippant cynicism. But I’m not sure we grasp what hope really is. I came across a verse the other day that tripped me out a little bit and got me thinking. The verse I’m talking about is in Romans, but we’ll get to that a little bit later on.

I want to start with this verse.

And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.
1Corinthians13:13

Straightforward right? Faith, hope, and love are all cool. But love is the best. But what about the others? We love faith. We love talking about it. We love idealizing it. But where are all the over-spiritualized discussions about hope?
I’m learning a little bit about hope and how to be conscious of it, and I’ve been inspired to share this with you. So here goes.

What is hope, Mr. Webster?
Hope is a belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one's life. Hope implies a certain amount of despair, wanting, wishing, suffering or perseverance — i.e., believing that a better or positive outcome is possible even when there is some evidence to the contrary (wikipedia)

A certain amount of DESPAIR?!?! That can’t possibly be a good thing for my life. Despair, wanting, and wishing. Aha, now you get the verse that I stumbled upon the other day. This is all really simple and maybe I’m telling you things you already know. But it’s fresh for me and that’s the beauty of it.

Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
Romans5:3-5

So yes, I do believe that a certain level of dissatisfaction is necessary for hope (i.e. I am dissatisfied right now at the fact that I am hungry, and so I am hopeful that I have the necessary ingredients for a grilled cheese sandwich). I don’t know about you, but there is not a lot satisfying to me about the world that we live in. Call me a pessimist if you want, but if you are missing the despair in this place, you must be blind. But I also have hope. Hope that the church will rise up and be the church. Hope that finally, there are some alarm bells ringing for the impoverished. Hope that one day my Lord is coming back.

Here’s the thing about hope that I love. It carries with it an expectancy: a holy fire that burns in anticipation. HOPE IS THE BELIEF THAT A BETTER OUTCOME IS ON THE WAY. A hopeful person is not a person who is easily discouraged (Job 13:15, Prov 23:18, Lam 3:21). A person who is hopeful is a person of purpose. A person of great strength. Here’s the kicker. The big shuh-bang. The ‘oh-my-gosh, this might just blow my mind’...

I think that faith is not possible without hope

Show me a person who has no faith and I will show you a person at the end of their rope. A person so hurt and so broken and so mislead that there is no hope left. On the flipside, show me a person who claims to have faith, but is cynical and does not believe that life can get better, and I will question that person’s faith.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1). So if faith is the evidence, then what is the real deal? I say, I think it’s hope. I dunno, maybe I’m just mislead. But I think that we are entirely to unhopeful. I’m quite certain that most of the time, we’re too content with the drudgery of life and our lack of hope keeps us from taking a stand and doing something about it. I think that God has so much more for us. I also think that we are responsible to act on that. To have hopes and dreams and ambitions that are SO HUGE THAT WE CAN’T SEE THE END OF THEM. He is able to do SO MUCH more than we could ever DREAM! (Eph 3:21, paraphrased) So I say that we let God be God. I say we give faith a fighting chance and pair it with discontented hope and a willingness to go to the ends of the earth. We might just change this place.

This is still brewing in my mind's cauldron, so if anybody has any insight...shoot it my way..