for the past 24 years of my life - up until this point, that is - i have had the absolute wrong idea of what hope is. i hope this post will open your eyes and your heart to the things that the lord has been teaching me over the past week and a half and help you to have a more biblical understanding of hope.
i hope for a lot of things. i hope i get married. i hope i have children. i hope i get to open my own business one day. i hope my family and i live long, healthy lives. i hope i get a raise soon. i hope play-it-again sports will trade in my elliptical for a treadmill. i'm hoping for the reconciliation of a relationship.
some of those things are more serious than others, obviously, but the idea is the same. i hope for a lot. that first one on my list is the thing that started this plunge into discovering what exactly hope is and how i can trust it. i have wanted to get married for my entire life. i've waited for it. i've dreamed about it. i've cried for it. i so desire to get married. i hope i get married. there are two possible outcomes for this desire: either i get married, or i don't. on the one hand, i'd be thrilled to meet the right man and fall in love and marry him. on the other, i'd be terribly disappointed that i did not get married, and probably spend a few years bitter and lonely and sad and even a little resentful. i was struggling with these thoughts and fears last week, when jesus pointed my heart to romans 5:5:
"and hope does not disappoint us..."
i immediately thought, well obviously if hope doesn't disappoint, then i'm going to get married - hooray! reality check. thank you to the holy spirit for always keepin' it real. hope doesn't mean i get what i want. hope means i get jesus.
i've been confusing hope with the things i'm hoping for. my hope is in the idea that one day i'll eventually get married. my hope usually lies in the object - the event - the person. my hope isn't hope at all, because hope does not disappoint, and my hope does.
jesus has been gently rearranging my heart the past few days to recognize and understand that he is the hope that paul is talking about. he is the only hope there is. if my hope is anything else short of jesus christ himself, i am certain to be disappointed. when my hope is christ and christ alone (who he is, not what he gives), i cannot be disappointed - he is a guarantee: his character, his mercy, his love, his return. this true hope is promised to be made sight one day.
what i'm realizing is that these things i "hope" for are really just things i want, and there's nothing wrong with that. they are the honest desires of my heart. but i can't rest my hope in the eventual fulfillment of those desires, because i may be disappointed. i have to rest my hope in the only hope there is - jesus. i'm learning so much about my will versus his. and honestly, i'm struggling through these lessons he's teaching me. i don't have this all figured out, and my heart is being twisted and stretched and broken in places to allow for him to shape it to be more like his (even knowing that it's still a painful process).
as much as i hate to admit it, it's kind of nice to be alone as i search the lord's heart through this process. not that i wouldn't like for certain things to have worked out or been different, but i don't think i could wade through the messy places in my life and heart right now while trying to figure out a relationship, too. maybe god knows what he's doing after all...(haha)
so. that's kind of where i'm at. over the past ten or so days, i've kind of felt like my heart may just break in to about 4,000 pieces, but the lord has been near and faithful and has been so gracious to teach me so much when i'm struggling with so many fears and thoughts and feelings. i have to believe that a lot of other single girls my age go through these same things (i mean i HAVE to believe that, or i'll think i'm crazy). but what a sweet time in my life this is, to experience jesus intimately and to have this time with him all to myself - and for him to have me all to himself. my prayer is that he would constantly take me to new depths in my relationship with him - to know him and trace his heart and his hand all over my life and in the lives of those around me.
follow up post soon: why do i focus so much on what i want?
such true, beautiful words!
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