The Year of Hope: With a Vengeance

On January 2 of this year, I embarked on a journey to study hope.  As of right now, though, what I've called "The Year of Hope" is a misnomer, because I'm not done studying hope. In fact, I feel I've only scratched the surface. I can't walk away from my digging and learning and studying simply because it's December 31. So I'm deciding there will be a sequel. "The Year of Hope 2." Possibly with a subtitle like "Lost in New York" or "Judgment Day."

For now, though, I am so grateful for what God has taught me on hope. There are a myriad of lessons, but if I could sum up the hope of Christ, it would be this:

1. God is good.  He wants to prosper us and not to harm us.  He is the giver of every good and perfect gift.  We have no good apart from Him. He does not withhold anything good from His children. He works all things together for good for those who love Him.  He delights in us. He lavishes love upon us.

Sometimes it's easy to think that there are degrees of God's goodness, i.e., "He's more good to her than to me." However, I agree with what Paige Benton Brown says:

Can God be any less good to me on the average Tuesday morning than he was on that monumental Friday afternoon when he hung on a cross in my place? The answer is a resounding NO. God will not be less good to me tomorrow either, because God cannot be less good to me. His goodness is not the effect of his disposition but the essence of his person—not an attitude but an attribute.  And can God be any less good to me than he is to [someone else]? The answer is a resounding NO. God will not be less good to me because God cannot be less good to me. It is a cosmic impossibility for God to shortchange any of his children. If he fluctuated one quark in his goodness, he would cease to be God.

Amen to that.

2. God is sovereign.  All power belongs to Him. He determines our steps. He is head over all creation. He does whatever He pleases. He is the potter, and we are His clay.  And He predestined us to adoption as sons.

A sovereign god who is not good is a dictator who is to be feared.

A good god who is not sovereign is sweet but powerless, offering a pat on the back and a cheer but no answer for tomorrow.

And a god who is neither sovereign or good?  To even consider that combination seems ridiculous, but it is no different than the idols of sex, power and money that so many worship.

But - a God who is both good and sovereign?  A God who wants the best possible things for you and has the power to give them to you?  A God who does as he pleases, and what delights Him most is you?  Now that's the God I want to serve.

And that's the God who brings hope. 

I start to feel hopeless when I forget one or both of these attributes of God.  I feel hopeless when it seems like God has remembered everyone else but me.  I feel hopeless when it seems like He is not being good to me.  And I feel hopeless when I feel like my situation is never going to change, or when it seems that there is no possible solution to the problem that I'm facing.

But there is hope.  There is always hope.  And even when I cannot see what God is doing, the hope is there.

"This is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance (and for this we labor and strive), that we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe."
I Timothy 4:9-10