My friend Ray introduced me to this better way of looking at the concept of hope. Previously the term was more like a wish you really wanted to happen. The sort of thing you crossed your fingers for, but held a degree of knowledge that it may not happen. It was a bit like optimism with added desperation.
Ray told me about a view on hope that was about a confident and assured expectation. Here hope wasn’t about crossing your fingers and wishing. Here hope was attached to a seemingly inevitability yet to be realised. It was going to happen and it was going to be good when it happened, but it was all a matter of time. That changed my perspective on things and also made me more careful to apply hope to situations. It was no longer a glib term used as a sympathetic sentiment.
There is a reason why I am so thankful about hope. When my parents brought my siblings and I into the world, I know they had hopes for us. Now with their youngest child the father of three children and their other children also responsible spouses and parents with hearts and minds committed to righteousness, those hopes are realised.
Teachers who taught me English, Music, Drama and RE saw something in me that they hoped would have some benefit later on in my life. Now if they would but see they would see those hopes realised to varying degrees.
Greater still, there are hopes that have been with me for decades. Some I did think were just wishful thinking, but as I walk with Jesus, study His Word and come alongside men and women of God, my faith looks up to God and realised these are hopes in which I can invest that confident assurance that it is a matter of time before it is realised.
This year in particular is a major deal to be able to say that as there was a host of factors that seemed destined to stop all of that in its tracks. Recently, however, I was reminded that the One who lives inside me is greater than circumstances that would seek to destroy those hopes. Those hopes are not selfish ambitions, they are rooted in God in Christ. He has honoured that by establishing His certainty in bringing that about. It is just a matter of time and in the light of the assurance it is for me to align my life to prepare to embrace those hopes as they are realised.
It is a sobering, humbling and exhilarating reality to know that the God of the universe still communicates with us and gives us good reason to hope. For that I am forever grateful.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
C. L. J. Dryden
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