Wishful Thinking or True Hope?
By Janelle Hill
Recently our family went to the Royal Show. Our children had spent weeks saving up their pocket money (and doing extra chores to earn extra money) to spend on a show bag and a ride. Leading up to the show, one of my sons spent hours poring over the show bag guide.
During the preceding weeks, this was his most precious possession – he took it to school and even kept it under his pillow at night. After much thought, my son made his decision and was very excited about his choice. On the way to the show, he was a bit anxious about his show bag and said several times that he hoped they would not have run out. The show bag hall, fortunately, had not run out of show bags, and the purchase of the much hoped for show bag was full of excitement.
Sometimes we think of hope like this – wishing for a particular nice thing to happen, or wishing that an awful thing will not. Christian hope is much more than wishing. Christian hope is like an anchor to a boat in a storm. It makes sense of our lives and experiences and gives us a goal to look towards.
What do you hope for? If we look deeply into ourselves, most of us hope to be a person who is able to be connected – able to give real love, and worthy to be loved. However, if we are honest we would say instead, we are flawed – limited in our capacity to truly, deeply and completely love – and we may feel unworthy to be loved in the same way.
Fortunately, Christian hope does not start or end with us, nor does it rely on us much at all. God is the foundation of our hope – we must start and end with Him. We fail all the time, but God never fails. Deut 31:6. We are unable to love as deeply as we would like, but God IS love. 1 John 4:8.
Our journey to hope begins with the amazing realisation that God knows us personally and individually. Even before time was created, God planned each person. He knew who each one of us would be, what we would be like, when and where we would be born – no one is an accident or a mistake. Then God gave us a unique name to describe everything about us. When He gave us this name it linked us to Himself, similar to the way in which a son and daughter are linked to their parents. We are not a faceless mass of humanity to God, but rather individuals of value to Him.
In fact, when God planned us, He planned for each of us to be a son or daughter of Him – linked into the family of God! In the Bible, God says this about us: ‘I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people; and I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty’. 2 Cor 6:16-18.
Right from before the beginning of time, God provided a place for each of us in the family of God. The apostle John wrote, ‘as many as received Him [Jesus], He gave to them authority to become the children of God’. Jn:12. But the human race has chosen to go its own way, ignoring that place.
As a result, we have become self-focused and unable to truly and completely love. No matter how hard each of us tries to be a ‘good person’, eventually we fail. This is because our independence cuts us off from the life and love that is in God. That is why the Bible says we are ‘dead’ in sins.1 A dead body is unable to do anything but corrupt and decay! It is the same for us. We may live and breathe, but we are unable to live like God lives. Despite our best efforts, everything we do is corrupt and decaying!
If we are dead, what hope do we have? Thankfully there is good news! The great apostle Peter said that God, in His great mercyhas made us alive ‘to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and unfading, reserved in Heaven for you’. (1Pe 1:3-4). What a promise full of hope! Not only has He designed us to love and be loved the way He does, He has also made a way for this to actually be possible. We don’t have to stay dead, cut off from God. He can make us alive again, bringing us back into relationship with Himself and with His people.
When Jesus came to earth, He was the Son of God in a human body. This was something new – God’s life in human flesh. Take a moment to think about the wonder of this. What a privilege and dignity God confers upon us by linking Himself to our human flesh! Then, when Jesus died on the cross and rose again from the dead He provided a way by which God’s life can come into us. We can be alive again to God! We can be empowered to be exactly who we were planned to be, and enabled to love and receive His love.
The Bible says, ‘look and see what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God’. 1 Jn 3:1. If we believe what God says and give ourselves totally to Him, we are made alive again. God ‘speaks’ our name again and we are received into His family. We are joined to God!
Our hope begins in God, and our starting point is in becoming a son or daughter of God. But our hope does not finish there. God wants us to grow and mature, just as a natural child grows towards maturity. The apostle John explained this when he said ‘now we are made the sons of God, but the finished person is not seen yet. When Jesus returns, we will be mature and complete, and we will be like Him’. 1 Jn 3:2.
This hope becomes our anchor during times of stress and sadness. Paul could say, ‘I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the coming glory to be revealed in us’. Rom 8:18. Times of trouble have new meaning because they are not random events. They are the process by which change happens in our lives. God works a miracle in our hearts so that we are connected to Him and His people, growing in a fellowship of reciprocal love.
What is your hope? Is your hope simply wishful thinking or do you have a hope that is an anchor to your soul?
Further reading: Heb 6:18-19; Titus 1:1-2; Rom 15:13; 1 Peter 1:3-4; 1 Cor 15:19-22
Read Ephesians 2 for more about this.
