How To Sing Hope

Sometimes life is about as bland as boiled potatoes.

What is to be done on those long dreary afternoons or featureless months when things aren’t precisely bad or difficult, just… the same old thing? The now but definitely not yet, when Jesus seems to be the Once and, to be certain, also the Future King, but in the meantime – well... this is no bridegroom’s feast before us today, only the lukewarm pot roast the housekeeper left in the oven before she went home for the night.

What is to be done? Do we trill with the eternal optimism of Little Orphan Annie, “The sun’ll come out tomorrow – bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow there’ll be sun! Just thinkin’ about tomorrow clears away the cobwebs and the sorrows till there’s none.”

But what next, when the tomorrows come and the dusty cobwebs and faint sorrows are still there in the corners and the shadows?

Shall we take a more dramatic pose and cry out, “On and on – does anybody know what we are looking for? Inside my heart is breaking; my makeup may be flaking, but my smile still stays on. The show must go on!”

Lest we become sick at heart, we need a bright star of hope to set our hearts on -- true hope, hope that will not disappoint – something tangible this side of eternity to sustain us on our journey of the soul. I would despair unless I believed I would see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living (Ps. 27:13).

I find (however) that when I hit these dull seasons I mistake good things for the goodness of God in the land of the living. Hoping in people, events, and circumstances is inevitable. The problem is that each of these things can crumble. A certain dream seems within reach, and then suddenly I'm exactly where I started. Or almost worse, I’m somewhere different but it’s no more exciting or interesting than the last place. It's depressing.

Or again, sometimes the stories we tell to interpret our lives become too small, too restrictive, and we have managed our expectations down to the ground and in the process lost sight of that one hope that cannot disappoint: “Instead of a love affair with God, your life begins to feel more like a series of repetitive behaviors… The orthodoxy we try to live out, defined as ‘believe and behave accordingly’ is not sufficient to satisfy whatever turmoil and longing our heart is trying to tell us about. Our outer story becomes the theater of the should and our inner story the theater of needs, the place where we quench the thirst of our heart with whatever ‘water’ is available” (John Eldredge).

I cannot sustain hope for the sake of being hopeful, and I cannot drink hope at the well of the next good meal, the next phone chat with a girlfriend, a healed body, the right relationship, a comfortable home. I need hope in something that endures and will never fail. I need to understand again the hope of my salvation so that it can break into my life.

Titus 2: 13-14 says “We wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own.” He HAS given himself – he HAS redeemed us – he IS purifying us and making us his own! We can see and hear and taste and touch that in our lives, and that is why we can rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

Where then does this hope of God break into my life? As He enlightens the eyes of my heart, I see it again and again, all around – thank God! His Kingdom IS here now, even though not yet displaying the fullness of its splendor: it is in the way he has brought me (O miracle!) from darkness and bondage to sin into the Kingdom of light with the grace not to sin. It is in in the loving Spirit-enabled fellowship I have with believers, it’s in prayer, in answers to prayer, in the liturgy, in communion, in my praise to Him at the beauty of a sky-streaked dawn, in the very change He works in me as He makes himself known to me over time. He has rescued me from the dominion of darkness and brought me into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins (Col. 1:13–14). This kingdom shines out through little rips and rents in this present darkness, salting my everyday life with flecks of light.

I am finding that as I hope in God’s promise to break in amidst the ordinariness of life, and when I see glimpses of the Kingdom manifested as the Spirit works in me and the world, I am not only seeing His grace of the moment, but I can be confident in the fullness of what it means for the world to come – and THAT sturdy hope will never be put to shame.

He came that we might have life, and have it to the full. (John 10:10)