A Conversation About Hope

As I sit down to write about hope, I feel a little bit overwhelmed. Hope is one of those intangibles. It's something we can't live without but at the same time we can't quite put our finger on. It's not really a feeling, but it's not entirely a decision or act of will either. It exists somewhere in the middle. Somewhere in the human fiber that is both essential but yet undefinable.

We have all heard the stories of pow's and other people in extreme circumstances that have died when their expectation for rescue has been taken away. Or of the person who has passed away, not for any medical reason, but from a broken heart. I think hope is at the center of this. It beats within our heart like a living thing, ingrained in the very muscles and nerves of our physical body. It drives us, it moves us, it makes us us. It exists at the center of who we are, around which the rest of us revolves like the planets around the sun. It is the cornerstone of our personal universe, and as such tells us much about ourselves and the human condition.

Because so much of our personal happiness and self satisfaction springs from where our hope is grounded, it would follow that to put our hope into something temporary would be foolish and almost unimaginable for intelligent and rational creatures such as ourselves. But this is exactly the place we find ourselves in a lot of the time. Hoping in our money, or our house, or our education, or even our football team. In the back of our mind, I think we all have the awareness of the how ridiculus this is. To cement such an important thing like hope on stuff that shifts and rides is borderline insane, yet here we are. Living for our paycheck like it will make us happy. Or our success. Or our relationships. Or our new car. Or our new clothes. You fill in the blank. You know what it is for you.

An interesting sidenote to this discussion is the idea of collective hope. Similar to an individual, a people group also cements their hope into something. We went through that in our country not too long ago on the political front. When this happens, the momentum that it breeds is almost unstoppable. We see this play out in sports teams, where the underdog believes and then wins. We have witnessed it throughout history in one sided battles and other insurmountable obstacles that have been overcome by groups of people who bleed their hope together and walk away with something amazing. Very telling in most of these stories is the fact that the hope was sparked in one person, and then spread like wildfire into the lives in direct connection, until the whole group was spinning in the same direction, around the same center, drawn by the same gravity.

So how do we evaluate ourselves? How do we know where our hope truly lies? How can we tell if we are building our lives on an illusion, on a shifting siesmic plate that at any moment may fall out beneath us? What will it take to bring it into focus for us? We all hear stories of tragedy or unexplainable loss that have suddenly ripped a persons perspective into the real, but do we have to wait for something like that? Does something really terrible have to happen before we decide to really live for something that matters, to put our hope into something that won't fade away? How do we do that?

I don't really think there is just one answer, and if there is, I certainly don't know it. I catch myself just as much as anybody else putting my hope into things of this world. But I do think there are clues. Where do we spend our time? If we say we are hoping in eternal things, then eternal things should show up in our schedule. Eternal things should interject into our time and have a presence there. What do we think about? Is all of our mental energy consumed by what we are going to eat, or drink, or wear, so that by the time we get to the things that really matter, we are just too worn out mentally to engage those things? What do we spend our money on? What do we talk about?

All these things leave a trail to follow, and we, like a tracker, hunt down our hope in order to pin in on something that will last. Something that won't betray us in the end. Something that will make a difference.