I’m in a hard season. If I’m being completely honest, the last few years have left me feeling exhausted and weary. In some ways, 2023 feels like 2020 the trilogy (and we all know how good the last movie of most trilogies is).
So imagine my surprise when, after praying and a bit of soul-searching, I felt like my word for the year was “Hope.” Hope is a sneaky little thing. It’s full of such power and promise. It’s what enables people to hold on during very difficult circumstances. It’s the light at the end of the tunnel that keeps us putting one foot in front of the other.
But what do we do when it feels like our hopes have been repeatedly dashed? How do we cope when the very idea of “hope” is coupled with sadness for the many times we’ve felt disappointment? How can we reconcile a good thing like hope with the heaviness that comes from knowing that things won’t always turn out the way we hoped they would – whether that’s in our personal lives, our families, or our careers?
The definition of hope is “a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.”
And that’s where the inner frustration seeps in. It’s easy for me to hold on to hope when things are going well. It’s harder when it feels like things are falling apart rather than falling into place. Romans 5 doesn’t sugarcoat the existence of suffering. It acknowledges that it’s a genuine part of life on planet earth, but it leaves us on a hopeful note…that pain is not wasted and we are not alone.
We don’t rejoice BECAUSE of our sufferings (some things that cause us to suffer break the heart of God too), but we can rejoice in the MIDST of them because we know that we’ll emerge stronger on the other side. Persevering amid suffering produces character, which leads us to hope. Hope allows us to walk in confidence, knowing that God loves us and promises to be with us in the middle of the mess.
My hope for 2023 can’t be that God will remove the problems or that he’ll rescue me from a hard season (although it’s 1000% OK with me if He wants to do that, lol). Sometimes He doesn’t. Sometimes life gets harder. Sometimes, those we love face illnesses we can’t cure. Hope is not the same as toxic positivity, which tells us to paint silver linings on all clouds. It’s an acknowledgment that life is hard, but God is there. He is the hope that does not disappoint. Sometimes, there’s more to the story than we see or understand.
I have to remind myself to be careful where I’m placing my hope. I can’t put it in other people or even in my own performance, but there is one place that promises to never let me down – a hope that will not disapoint me. I can put my hope in Him because He keeps his promises. He loves me. He promises to walk beside me even through the shadowy valley parts of my journey. And therefore, I have hope. Where do you need hope today? How can you invite God to walk with you on this journey and remind you of His love for you? “Not only that, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.” – Romans 5:3-5
Leave a Comment