october 2023 featured Article
Hope: It’s More than a Wish
The rain was so hard I could hardly see out of my windshield much less to the office door across the parking lot. Sheets of wind-blown water were pouring down so fast I expected Noah to come floating by any minute. I sat and waited, expecting it to let up soon, but it never did. So I decided it was time to man up and make a run for the door.
When I made it into the office, drenched from head to toe, the first words out of my mouth made sense to me and everyone else who heard me.
“It’s a monsoon out there!”
Heads nodded. Some snickered. But everyone agreed with the implied meaning of the word monsoon. And we were all wrong.
Despite our accepted use of this word, a monsoon is not a downpour or a storm. It is literally “a seasonal prevailing wind in the region of South and Southeast Asia.” We all use many words like this, we all understand each other when we use them, and we are all wrong together.
If I told you that the tornado “decimated” the town, you would assume that I meant that it completely destroyed the town. But the word literally means to destroy one-tenth. If I said I wanted to give you a “factoid” about something, you would think that I meant a small truth, and you would trust what I said to be true. But the word literally means a “false fact.”
The list could go on and on; and when it comes to the words we use in spiritual conversations and spiritual thought, the list might be even longer.
One of those words we use, assuming the wrong meaning, is hope. Getting this wrong has major implications for our faith and our mission.
In Jeremiah 29:11, one of the great promises of the Scriptures is given. “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” But if we read and understand “hope” in the way most of us do, we completely miss the power of this promise.
Usually when we say or read this word, we interpret it as nothing more than a want or a wish. I hope that Tennessee wins the game this weekend, but I have no confidence or certainty that it will happen. When my kids say that they hope it snows on Christmas, it is nothing more than a dream and a wish because we have no idea if it will come true. So then, when we say that we have hope in Jesus or that we have a hope to offer to the hopeless, what good is it? If it is nothing more than a want or a wish or a dream without any certainty, why would it matter?
But thankfully, the hope that Jesus offers is so much more than what we have diluted it down to be. Biblical hope may be best defined as “confident expectation.” The hope that we have in knowing that Jesus is Lord of all and in total control is more than a wish. The hope of eternity is one that we can take to the bank knowing that without a doubt this is not my home. I have a confident expectation that with Jesus I can anticipate an eternity that awaits; and that hope is one that brings confidence, an unspeakable joy regardless of my circumstances, and a peace that passes understanding when all around me is chaos and confusion.
It is this hope that allowed Paul to write the words, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” Regardless of what came to him on this earth, Paul had a confident expectation that Christ was King and would bring ultimate victory.
What if we truly embraced this kind of hope? What if we had a confident expectation that because Jesus said that He would build His church and the gates of hell would not prevail, we can take it to the bank? What if we lived out of the truth that we can pray for His kingdom to come and His will be to be done on earth just as it is in heaven, and confidently expected it to happen?
When I think about the mission God has called each of us to and the mission that we embark upon together as a family of churches, this is the hope that I have! We can do so much more than want or wish or desire for the Holy Spirit to move. We can have a confident expectation that it will happen. We can have a peace that passes understanding when it seems to be far from us. We can have a joy that is unspeakable even when the circumstances surrounding us seem anything but happy.
We can have confidence. We can be bold. We can have hope!