Hope In Action

Have you ever felt a situation was hopeless?

For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. - Romans 8:24-25

Hope for me is an active verb, not a passive one.  Paul tells us to that hope allows us to patiently wait for what we do not see.  It is hope that tells us it will come.

But I tend to be patient in some things and impatient in others.  I don't always like to wait for something I feel I can help come about.

For me, patience becomes persistence.  I keep trying every possible approach seeking a positive outcome.  The hope lies in knowing one will come.  That is, the Spirit that dwells within all of us will help us get there, if we are open to it.

What we hope for, though, may be something different from what God is trying to help us find.

So, in that, I see Paul's point.  If we are patient, hope will reveal the solution that works best.

I think we need to work together, us and God.  He guides, we listen, and we move forward in the light of His grace.

The key to being active in our hope, then, may be to take frequent pauses, to stop and pray and listen for clues and wait for fresh ideas to pop into our heads.  Being patiently active, we will discover our way.

What we lack in this scenario is control.

We may feel we have it all together one moment and then trip over an unseen obstacle in our path.  That's life.  Throughout my career, I learned that every progress report I wrote made it look like the project or program was well controlled, when the next report revealed the flaws in that assumption.

But we live in the hope of controlling our lives, as ridiculous as that may be.  What we should live in the hope of is in being true to ourselves and to God.  When we do that, all our actions will be fruitful.

More to come...