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Hope and Faith Articles: Scroll down the page to the article of your choice.
- Three Faces of Hope
- What Do You Hope For In Your Life?
- Making The Faith/Hope Connection In Your Life
Article One: Three Faces of Hope
Recently I returned to my Oxford Dictionary to refresh my memory on the definition of hope. I've grown uncomfortable with how easily we as a culture use the word hope to dismiss the very essence of what the word is intended to convey. How has the word hope come to be its own worst enemy? Do we as a culture still value hope? What does it mean to hope? Oxford offers three words that define hope as a verb in our culture: expect, desire and confidence. I believe these words are the keys to understanding hope in our culture, as wellas defining this understanding as three faces of hope.
To expect something to happen usually means one of two things: an event is going to take place because it has been planned to occur; or an expectation has been set, apart from any connection to reality, and the event may or may not occur. To expect the birth of a child is to anticipate an event that is planned to occur. Circumstances may sway how that event happens, but the expectation and the event are both concrete, real. To expect that same child, three years later, to automaticaly put her/his toys away because they have been told to once is a false expectation. New skills take time and encouragement to develop. To believe otherwise is to have false hope, and to set oneself up for disappointment and frustration.
To expect something based in reality is to hope for something that can actually become a reality. To expect something that likely will not be is to hope falsely. I believe this is where we have turned hope against itself, pretending that hope is a last ditch piece of magic to reconcile our realities like an out-of-balance checkbook. If we hope, even falsely, then God will hear us and life will be perfect, by our standards. When life doesn't become perfect, whole, fixed, we generally blame God, a God who doesn't listen and doesn't give us what we want. Our hopes are dashed, we pout a little and still have to manage our lives. Our false hopes translate to a false accusation against God, and we are no where but where we started.
Desire. It's a fantastic soap opera word. Images of great romances, passionate love affairs and love-gone-wrong-made-right are all evoked by the word desire. I have nothing against the usage or the soap operas. I can tell you the story liines for Days of Our Lives in historical detail. My only complaint is how limited our use of desire has become. Dream is a much safer term, more etheral, and like false expectation, easier to pretend with ourselves about. Desire is about passion, committment and a zest for living.
Can you envision hope in such a dramatic, powerful way? If you can, you can see that this kind of hope is big, strong and every ounce of real that is possible. Desirous hope speaks of faithful abandon, a joyous celebration of what you can see coming, and you can zero right in on it with a great shout of, "Halleluja!"
Do we as a culture still have hope? We say we do, but I'm not sure our culture does know this kind of hope, this treasure of delight that can move us forward and deepen our resolve for a better future. We are a tentative people, not quite wanting to invest in and develop something we don't believe we can touch. To dream is an etheral, individual experience. To desire is to lay claim to the passion of living and forge ahead.
We are missing this kind of hope in our culture, but I believe we can begin to mark the ladnscape with rich, potent doses of the kind of desirours hope that faith in God inspires. Openness to that infusion of power and faith is the conviction for things we can't see yet, but can survey with our hearts and souls. What it means to hope is to have confidence in God as our Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer. Our expectations and desires are based in reality, and we are confident in them because we have every reason to be.
More than anything, these three faces of hope - expectation, desire and confidence - give us the framework out of which we see God ahead of us, beckoning us forward with one hand, and reaching back with the other to grasp us firmly with love.
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Article Two: What Do You Hope For In Your Life?
What do you hope for in your life?
It's a simple enough question, but one I find most people are at a loss to answer, or are surely uncomfortable considering. I sometimes hear people hope for good weather for an event or a trip, at other times a sports victory, or even a good parking spot at the mall. I rarely hear people hope for anything large or having substance, as if to do so is a voodoo curse.
So, no holds barred, what would you hope for if there were no restrictions, no limits? Health, the perfect job, a comfortable home, an opportunity to travel the world? I challenge you to take a deep breath, exhale, close you eyes and try this excercise. Try to remember the very best, most magical day of your life. What was it like? Who was with you? Where were you? What were you doing? Remember the sounds, the smells, the flavors of each moment as you revive these memories in your mind and being. Cherish each smile, each reflection, each thought as you recall each detail. What did that experience feel like?
Now, take another deep breath, and exhale. Imagine that tomorrow is all yours. You have the opportunity to create a perfect day, just the way you would like it. No one else directing your life or calling the shots. No one laying claim on any of your time. No financial restrictions. What would you do with tomorrow? Would you get up early to watch the sunrise? Would you take a trip to the seashore? Clean our your closets? Plant a new flowerbed in your front yard? Read a favorite book? Fly to New Orleans for a walk down Bourbon Street? Work a few hours at a soup kitchen before taking off for the opera in New York?
Open your eyes and jot down everything you might like to do. There's no point in pretending you can't do everything on that list because you can. Not all in one day, but there is no reason to believe that the desires of our hearts cannot be realized. The first step is to practice hoping in concrete forms. Small, medium or large, hopes are the fabric of our lives. "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us." God's word is hope, and our imagining this hope alive is the first step to making this hope, our desires and God's desires for us and the world, manifest.
Hope small, hope medium and hope large. Hope often. Keep a hope journal and see what comes of actually believing that God hopes with us. Live your hope and see what that does to shape your life anew.
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Article Three: Making the Hope/Faith Connection In Your Life
You have hope in your life, expectations, desires, a feeling of confidence in what you intend for your life. You know where you want your hope to lead you. But what is the path that you will need to create to continue your journey?
Going back to Hebrews 11 we discover some clues. After gathering the evidence of Abel, Abraham and Sarah's faith, we are reminded that they died before the promises made to them were actually manifested,"but having seen it and greeted it from afar and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth," they did understand and name their legacy to us. "For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland." The legacy is twofold: we, as they, are strangers, resident aliens, of the earth, but we still search for the home that is ours as God's people.
These strangers and exiles did some pretty odd and terrifying things. Abraham was ready to sacrifice his son; Moses gave up the good life to lead and seek justice for his people; Sarah was the original "Oldest Woman Gives Birth." The people who followed Moses through the Red Sea took a huge risk leaving Egypt and potentially drowning during their escape. Rahab welcomed spies, but saved her own life. All strangers and exiles who took risks by going along with a God of uncommon sense who said, "Here I am, follow me." In following God they were heading for home. In following God they were already at home. If hope is expectation, desire and a feeling of confidence, then faith is being at home with God in our actions as we move toward home with God.
Have you ever moved out of a house you really loved? I have, more than once, and each time I have been reminded that a house is not a home because we carry home with us. It still takes believing that I can make that transition happen successfully every time I open the door to the new house for the first time. This new, empty void has nothing to do with home, until I set my foot on the threshold and my keys on the kitchen counter. And this is where life begins, and continues. I know what to do to set up a house, but it is the living that will make it a home.
Living is the path between our hopes, expectations, desires and feelings of confidence, and faith. Not just living, but living as strangers, always setting up home in a land that says you should never leave what most people cling to as home. Home is not the same routine over and over, although we are frequently comforted by routine. Home is not running away when standing still is harder. Home is not making choices for your life because other people feel they are right and you feel they are wrong. Home is living the room that God opens up in your life to choose what appears to lack every bit of common sense imaginable. Living that room is what creates our lives, and what bridges the assurances of hope and faith. When we bridge the gap, we are, as the old hymn reminds us, "No more a stranger or a guest, but like a child at home."
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