Day 16

8 From now on, brothers and sisters, if anything is excellent and if anything is admirable, focus your thoughts on these things: all that is true, all that is holy, all that is just, all that is pure, all that is lovely, and all that is worthy of praise. 9 Practice these things: whatever you learned, received, heard, or saw in us. The God of peace will be with you.  Philippians 4:8-9, CEB

What do we do with our hopes that are specific?

We’ve talked about hope in rather general terms so far this month.  We’ve talked about hope as being a confident trust that God’s plans are slowly unfolding.  This doesn’t mean that every situation or circumstance is a domino that falls into a bunch of other dominos that lead us to a certain, specific end of history, but it does mean God is present in our lives, in the world, and in history.  We believe He has an endgame in mind and that He knows when He’s going to make that all happen.

Okay, fine.  God has the end planned out.  What about now?  What hope do we have for sick children, sick parents, mental illness, starvation, war, and whatever else is going on in the world or our lives?  What happens when we hope and pray for someone to live and they die?  What happens when we pray for the end of fighting and there’s only more fighting?  What happens when we pray for a disease, addiction, affliction, or something else to go away and it’s still there?  Do we give up?  What do we do these hopes?  Are they so wrong?

It’s certainly not wrong to have those hopes.  And I have no good answers for the other questions.  At some point, we just don’t know what the heck is going on in the world, in our lives, or with God for that matter.  I really hope you don’t give up.  If you’re in a hopeless place, I pray you don’t give up.

I think the only thing we can do with these kinds of hopes and struggles is to voice them and be honest about them.  Voice your displeasure with God to God.  If you don’t know how, or you’re afraid to, flip through the Psalms.  If it’s in the Bible, then it’s safe.  Simple as that.  Voice the difficulty and the unmet expectations to the people in your community, in your hut.  It helps.  I promise, it helps.  It doesn’t seem like it would, but it does.  Ask people for what you need.  If you need someone to pray with you, ask for it.  If you need someone to listen to you, ask for it.  If you need someone to distract you and take you to a dumb movie, ask for that.  And, if you’re the person being asked, please, by all means, if you can, say yes.

We can find hope in these simple small things when we’re hopeless.  We’re not always going to be able to find understanding.  But we can find a little bit of hope.  Even if it’s only a little bit.  We just need enough hope for today.  We can worry about tomorrow when it gets here.