Hope Does Not Disappoint

In honor of moving on, no more numbers, no more counting the days since my life (as I had it planned) fell in pieces. I’m moving towards something, not away from Aaron. Towards what isn’t quite as clear, but God knows.

Y’shua and I have been talking about hope lately. Correction—He’s been talking about it. He wants to give it to me, but I’m resistant. I find it scary. Hoping hurts, and I’ve had all the hurt I can handle right now. Moving on from Aaron is only one kind of hard that’s in my life currently. I have a list of others that aren’t really material for this blog. But it feels like Y’shua is stripping me down and stripping me down and stripping me down. Crushing me. He might not stop until there’s nothing left but my raw weakness and Himself.

But in the midst of all this hard He keeps prodding me that I can’t put my hope in anything other than Him. He’s the only one that will not disappoint. My hope cannot be in my internship. My hope cannot be in leaders on the farm. My hope cannot be in marriage. My hope cannot be in starting a ministry someday. My hope cannot be in certain friendships. My hope cannot be in getting certain results. My hope cannot be in being at peace with my family or spiritual authorities. My hope cannot be in being perfectly healed. But I have hoped in these things, at least to some extent or another. I like results. I like to see progress. And right now Y’shua keeps leading me tenderly back to the mess and asking me to sit in it. Learn to be okay with things not being okay. Look at Me. Hope in Me.

But what does hope look like when it’s in the Lord and nothing else? I’m still trying to figure that one out. The practicality of it doesn’t quite compute in my brain because the intangibility of hoping in the Lord has to translate into some kind of physical hope on this earth at some point, right? I know it’s not healthy to sit in my room and not want anything. That’s called apathy. Been there. Done that (maybe some days still sampling it). Not life-giving. But how do I want something (hope for it) and not want something (only hope in the Lord) at the same time? How do I be aggressive in taking territory back from the enemy, going after the kingdom, and not settling for second best while not putting my hope in seeing any of those things actually come about?

Romans 5:3-5

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Sufferings? Check.

Endurance? If endurance means not quitting, then I guess check, although some days the only reason I don’t is that the Lord won’t let me (dang it).

Character? I sure hope He’s giving me some in all of this.

And then after all that hard comes hope—hope that will not put to shame, that will not disappoint, that will not deceive, that will not cause me to suffer a repulse. Hope in the fact that while I was still weak, Y’shua died for the ungodly, for me (v.6).

If hope does not disappoint, then I must not have had hope—not the kind the Word describes. Because I have felt disappointment rip through my heart on nearly all fronts of my life in the past two months. So maybe I’m afraid of something I think I know but have really never experienced. And I’m still left with the question, what does it mean to hope? Y’shua is going to have to answer this one for me, because all my degrees and trying to rationalize this one out are failing. Impossibility my head and heart scream. And Y’shua laughs as if He knows He’s the God of the impossible.