Hope Anchor

Hope - a word that is often used to describe our feelings of expectation that something we are struggling with or waiting for will change for the better.  We say to someone struggling, “you need to have hope.”  We talk about the outcome we hope to happen. But for me, the concept of hope has been an ongoing source of struggle.  So often in periods of waiting, hope has seemed painful and pointless as expectations and desires go unmet. Since I know God is all powerful and can do all things, when it feels like he doesn't follow through, or it seems to take a long time, my balance in life and emotions waver.  

I vividly remember wrestling with this in the months after my first marriage broke down.  I believed God had the ability to reconcile my marriage, and at the time that was absolutely my heart's desire (certainly not a bad desire to have).  So when things didn’t go as I expected and my hope wasn’t met, I struggled. After all, what was the point in having hope and believing something would come to pass, especially when, in my experience, life had seldom worked itself out in the way I expected.

Again I encountered this struggle in my years as a single woman. My heart strongly desired a husband. I hoped, believed and declared that God would bring him along.  As the months and years wore on and my dream remained unfulfilled, my hope, and sometimes my belief, crashed around on waves of emotion.  For me the verse “hope deferred makes the heart grow sick” (Prov 13:6) was one I truly identified with.

Then, about a year and a half into our marriage, in a moment of despair about our baby journey (read more in The Infertile Journey) I cried to my husband, “I hate hope! It’s painful and provides so much disappointment!”  But over recent months God has been revealing to me a flaw in my thinking.  I am coming to realise that actually I am not a fan of the type of hope our world promotes.  Essentially, this is a hope that God will simply give us the outcome that we desire.

My hope has been in God bringing about the outcome I believed he had placed in my heart.  Ultimately, my hope and my focus has been in the fulfillment of my desires, not the fulfiller of my desires.  And this clarification has brought with it a sense of relief and peace.  

My Hearts Desire

The Bible talks in a number of places about God giving us the desires of our hearts. However, we often forget or omit the first part of Psalm 37:4 which says “Delight yourself in the Lord.”  This means that if I focus on God, learning more about Him, and growing my relationship with Him, then my desires will become more like His desires.   

Jesus also taught us about the importance of living in God’s will. In the Lord’s Prayer he told us to say “Your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  Again when he was in the garden hours before his death, he was so anguished that he was sweating blood, yet still he prayed “Not my will but yours be done”.   We live in a fallen world where bad things happen to good people, but each person has a choice about how they will respond to any given situation. Even when life is affected by the sins of this world, God is all-powerful and big enough that His ultimate purpose is able to prevail. My job is to seek His will, His timing, and focus on bringing Him glory in all I do. When my desires align with the will of God, I am more likely to see His blessing in the things I hope for.  

Our Souls Rest

Now I am not saying that we shouldn’t be praying and believing for specific things in our lives.  I truly believe there is power in our prayers and that sometimes we need to break through in prayer for God’s will to come about.  What I am saying is that if we can shift our hope away from the specific things we are believing for and focus on the goodness of our God himself: the fact that he longs to bless us; that his love for us is immeasurable; that his plans are for our good, then THESE THINGS are our hope.  No matter what happens, no matter if we see the fulfillment of our dream or not, our footing is sturdy in the knowledge that God is working and that the eventual outcome will be for our best.  

Understanding all of this allows us to find rest. Heb 6:19 says “This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls.”   With the knowledge of God's goodness as our hope, our emotions are more peaceful and are no longer tossed around as our circumstances change. Jesus said “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” (John 14:27 NIV) These are statements He could have only made because of His unwavering assurance in his Dad’s immense love and goodness towards his children and an abiding knowledge that God has it all completely in control.

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