We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love. –Romans 5:3-5
In the darkness of the pandemic, I had come to the end of my path. Walking through a difficult season with a difficult group of people I felt I had been crucified. Phone calls, emails, meetings; it all felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders and the world was crumbling. It was sitting in a meeting with a group of men who smiled outwardly, and stabbed violently with their words that I recognized there was no calming this storm.
So I stepped out on the waves. The thunder boomed all around me, and the lightning exposed my innermost core. I have the scars to show it.
Moments like these have defined pivotal moments in my life and faith journey. The loss of my mother at 15, stepping into leadership in college, packing my car to leave a town I’d called home for 5 years with no spot to land, resigning a pastoral position for the good of my family at the worst possible financial time, and a fateful call with an abusive leader. These are just a few moments that have and continue to shape the way that I look at the world.
I’ve been crushed, but not abandoned. Destitute, but rich. Felt keenly like I was walking through a dark labyrinth, yet guided every step of the way.
A Pattern of Hope
I’ve been reflecting over the past six weeks about the defiant nature of hope. By definition, hope is believing in something that just should not be. The improbability of the belief looms as a mountain over our hearts and threatens to crush it. Yet hope pushes back with all its might and says no.
The Biblical story is full of defiant hope. As God is proclaiming the reality of the curse upon the world, He offers a strand of hope that this too will be crushed one day. Abraham receives hope in his old age of not just a single descendant, but more than he could possibly imagine. Hagar, having been left to die, receives a blessing that she will live and her son will also fulfill the blessing given to his father. Joseph is beaten, betrayed, and forgotten more than once, yet he clings to his faith ferociously. Moses is a broken man in the desert, yet a conversation with a Living God leads him back to confront his shame and lead people to freedom. Daniel is abducted into a foreign, pagan culture, yet even in the literal jaws of death defiantly hopes. Jesus faces the weight of the world as he suffocates on the cross, yet gives it up freely with the hope that he would see the light of another day.
Following Jesus requires defiant hope.
Hope in Ministry
As I look to the next season, I have found God inviting me to step back onto those waters. It has been a season of weariness. It felt like each week brought a new bullet flying my way, and I had a keen kinship with Elijah in the desert. I was not sure if I had the energy or hope for the next step.
“Come and follow me” beckoned me to step out of the boat once more. Would I be okay if I failed, because I stepped out of the boat? Is my ego wrapped up in success, or is it enraptured by a Saviour who loves me?
The reality of hope is that we have little control over any other circumstance. We only have control over who we look to, and how we respond. If we’re called to a way of life where we never see a single success, is it a failure if we were obedient? Is our success the measure of an obedient life, or is stepping out on the waves enough to satisfy our deepest desires?
When Jesus reprimands his disciples, it isn’t because they weren’t successful but because they lacked the faith to believe in him. They were busy pointing fingers at one another and arguing about literal bread, and here before them was Jesus who had multiplied a lunch to feed thousands. They lived in a scarcity mindset, while God had already shown them how much abundance He was pouring out on the world.
Joseph spent a good chunk of his early life betrayed, in prison, and waiting for God’s promise. We read over the story in a few minutes, but neglect the years and decades that tick by with a sentence. Countless nights in chains wondering why God was punishing him despite his continued faithfulness, waiting for the next opportunity. Imagine seeing the cup bearer be released and thinking the gates were about to be thrown open, only for hundreds of days to pass before someone comes for you.
The pain of seeing your original betrayers walk through the door decades later, and being able to let your pain go. To not only welcome them and offer them the grain they so desperately need, but to provide a way for the family to flourish in a God provided environment. Through the worst kind of betrayal from jealous brothers, God provided a path to fulfill His covenant promise: a country where the family could grow from a few brothers to millions.
Often God works on a different timeline than us. Which can be a frustrating realization to the turn of phrase that a thousand years is like a day. Or it can give us hope – God is always present, always working. Our role is not to understand the twists and turns, but to be obedient in the ordinary moments of life.
Fuel to face the storms of life with a defiant hope. To be pressed, but not crushed. Perplexed, but not despairing. Persecuted, but not abandoned. Struck down, but not destroyed. We join in the suffering, submission, and mission of Jesus, a victory that was won in a decisive ‘defeat.’
Even if we will never see the Kingdom Come in our lifetime in the way that we hope, every conversation, each meal, every open door, every callous on our knees are worth it, because they are born out of a life of defiant, obedient, hope. So raise those hands, but not in a fist, but an open hand that invites a posture of “not my will, but Yours be done.”