“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
1 Corinthians 13:13
Hope.
The inner resolve to press forward and believe even when circumstances seem dim.
With hope, nothing will stop us.
Without it, we are destroyed.
It is said that those who were able to survive the atrocities of Germany’s concentration camps were the ones that had hope. On the contrary, it was the ones who had given up, stopped dreaming, refused to believe there was hope for freedom, were the ones who died before all the others.
Proverbs 13:12 powerfully explains: “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” Hope is a powerful emotion and belief. It creates tenacity and will-power to consistently move forward, even through the midst of overwhelming struggle and grief. It’s believing that at some point things will turn around for good.
The success of hope is determine in whom you place your hope in. When I reflect on Scripture, it seems one of the events that carried the greatest hopelessness was for the disciples when Jesus died on the cross.
There was much confusion. These didn’t work out the way they thought. They had watched Jesus give sight to the blind, enable the lame to walk, heal those who had leprosy, open the ears of the deaf, raised the dead back to life and proclaimed the good news to the poor. (Luke 7:22) Yet, he couldn’t save himself. And when He died, so did all of their hopes and dreams.
Three days of hopelessness. It’s easy for us to dismiss their feelings today. We know the end of the story. Most of them weren’t holding on for hope for the third day. To them, it was all over. As far as they knew, there was never a chance for things to be different. And yet, all that changed with the resurrection.
They went from utter hopelessness and helplessness, to ecstatic rejoicing.
Perhaps you feel hopeless? Perhaps you don’t see the a bright ending to your situation? Perhaps your 3 days, seems more like 3 months or 3 decades? Perhaps you need a resurrection?
Hebrews 6:19 promises us, “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.” Where is this hope that will anchor our soul in the midst of our storm? Our anchor is solely in Jesus Christ. He is the God of impossibility. He is the God who redeems. He is the God who heals. He is the God of all hope.
Good life on earth is not our hope. It is not our end game. Our hope is found in our salvation and the promise of eternity with God. It is in this gift alone that our desperation will turn to hope.
Through every trial, every hardship, every hurt and every pain, our soul can be anchored to the One who loves us most. Our hope in Jesus Christ alone, will sustain us!
May we continue to live…
Rooted in Him,
