Daring to Hope Part 2

Throughout the last months, I have realised that when I look at poverty and incompressible suffering and heartbreak, I find it easy to slip into a way of thinking that blames God. I find myself choosing to ignore the evidence of God’s goodness and faithful and instead I allow my heart to be filled with a feeling of hopelessness that if don’t to God and surrender, threatens to consume me.

Yet as I read this book, I was reminder of the reality that despite the pain, I have seen God’s redemptive hand at work in the lives of the most vulnerable and my own. I was reminded that hope is “our great expectancy that we will know Him in all our circumstances, even the seemingly hopeless ones.” Having hope doesn’t make sense to the outside world. It logical doesn’t make sense to have hope in God when there are child dying and being physically abused. It doesn’t make sense. I’ve found that it can be emotionally and spiritually tiring to have hope and faith in situations that I might not see resolved until I reach Heaven. But again, I was convicted by the fact that “we grow weary, but He does not. He is the Lord who will still provide even when we are at the end of ourselves.” I find that I often try to do handle situations on my own and think that through my own strength, it will be resolved. Even as I do this, I know that God is the only way but I somehow try to convince myself otherwise. I want to learn what it means to surrender all and completely rely on God’s strength, wisdom and understanding to guide my life.

The following statement particularly struck me:

“Do we hold out our flame of hope no matter how small? We know what He is capable of, and we believe that His love is better than life. Do we ask though we know? And if we end up asking for something He is not giving, and maybe will not give, do we trust Him enough to wholeheartedly believe He will do what is best for His glory?”

If I’m honest, I find that extraordinarily difficult to do. I find it hard to love and to invest into certain situations when I know that the outcome might not always be what I would’ve chosen. As I was reading, I was reminded that when we love His people, the ‘hard road suddenly becomes not a burden but a place of great honour, a place of partnership and intimacy with Him. We were allowed by our gracious Father to love His people, to give of ourselves to His beautiful children.’

I’ve realised that having hope is a way of honouring God; of believing and holding onto the promises in His word that He will redeem, make all things new and turn ashes into beauty. I don’t have the answers and although I struggle, I desire to consistently choose to believe in the who God is and I feel challenged to have the courage to find beauty in the pain of the world even though it goes against human nature to trust in something that we cannot see.

“Maybe courage is not at all about the absence of fear but about obedience even when we are afraid. Maybe courage is trusting when we don’t know what is next, leaning into the hard and knowing that it will be hard but more God will be near. He is the God Who Will Provide. He will provide His presence, His strength or whatever He decides we most need. Maybe bravery is just looking fear in the face and telling it that it does not win because we have known the Lord here.”

All of the quotes are taken from Katie Davis Majors book, 'Daring to Hope'.