Faith and Hope....What Exactly Are They? Do We Get Them Wrong? 2

This is the second part of this topic and in this part, the focus is on hope. If you have not read the first part, please do so here.

Hope - Br. David Vryhoff

It is impossible to live without hope.  We can live without many things, but we cannot live without hope.  Martin Luther, the great 16th century Reformer, boldly stated that “Everything that is done in the world is done by hope.”  Hope inspires us and sustains us; it gets us out of bed in the morning and consoles us in the evening.  It enables us to persevere in hardship, to rejoice in suffering, to carry on in the face of overwhelming odds.  It enlivens us, cheers us, and brings meaning and focus to our lives.  We cannot live without it. 

What, then, is hope, and how can we obtain it? 

Ordinarily, when people use the word ‘hope,’ they are expressing uncertainty rather than certainty.  “I hope she wins the election” means, “I don’t have any certainty that she will win, but that is what I desire.”  But this is not the hope we are speaking of this evening.  Christian hope is not just a desire for something good in the future, but rather the confident expectation that what we hope for will, in fact, come to be.  Christian hope is not wishful thinking, it is not keeping our fingers crossed and hoping for the best.  Rather, it is the unshakeable conviction that God is faithful and true, and that what God has promised will come to be. 

From the beginning God has never left us without hope.  In the story from Genesis today we learn that even when our sin and rebellion resulted in pain and suffering, God did not abandon us to our fate, but promised to work for our salvation and deliverance.  Foreshadowed by the angel’s pronouncement to Mary, that promise would come to fulfilment in the person of Jesus, whose name means “Yahweh saves.”  Christian hope is the confident expectation that God is at work in the world and in our lives, to save and deliver us, and to restore us to that fullness of life that God intended for us, and it is the confident expectation that there is nothing that will ultimately overcome or defeat us, or thwart God’s ultimate purpose for our lives – not even death. 

What is the basis for such hope? 

I’ll suggest three things; I'm sure there are others besides these: 

First, we have hope in the character of God.  Everything we know of God – from the Scriptures, from our faith tradition, from our own experience and the experience of countless others – is that God is loving and good, faithful and true.  In every generation there have been countless believers who have “tasted and seen that the Lord is good,” and so have learned to put their trust in God.  Our hope is in the GOD that we have come to know.  With the psalmist we declare our faith in him: “For GOD ALONE my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation.  He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall never be shaken… For God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from him… On GOD rests my deliverance and my honour; my mighty rock, my refuge is in GOD” (Psalm 62:1, 2, 5, 7).Our hope is not in political leaders, in governments or institutions, in popular movements or new ideas, in progress brought about by human intelligence or achievement, though we are not indifferent to these things.  Our hope is in GOD, and God alone.  “Why are you cast down, O my soul,” asks the psalmist, “and why are you disquieted within me?  Hope in GOD, for I shall again praise him, my help and my God” (Psalm 42:5).  We hope in GOD. 

Second, because we have come to know the goodness of God, we have hope in the promises of God.  Remember our forebears Abraham and Sarah.  It was promised to them that they would be the parents of a great nation and even when Abraham was old and his wife was barren, they clung to that promise.  Saint Paul speaks of Abraham’s faith in God’s promise in his letter to the Romans.  He writes, “No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised” (Romans 4:21,21).  “By faith (Abraham) received power of procreation,” the letter to the Hebrews tells us, “even though he was too old – and Sarah herself was barren – because he considered him faithful who had promised” (Hebrews 11:11).  Abraham’s hope was not in his own resourcefulness, determination, skill or effort; but in God.  The promise, if it was to come to pass, depended entirely on God.  He hoped in God.  He dared to hope because he was “fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.”  Because we believe in God’s character, we also believe in God’s promises. 

Third, we have hope in the power and ultimate victory of God.  When the New Testament speaks of hope, it almost always does so in conjunction with the resurrection of Christ from the dead.  For example, Peter opens his First Letter with these words: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!  By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…” (I Peter 1:3).  The early Christians found new hope not only in the empty tomb, but in their experience of the Risen Christ living and active among them.  The fact that God had raised Jesus from the dead was evidence for them of God’s ability to overcome every obstacle.  It was why Paul could write to the Christians in Rome with such great conviction that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).  Christian hope looks back to the resurrection of Jesus and forward to his coming again in glory.  Because of what God has done in the past, we dare to hope that God will fulfil his promise for the future.  Therefore, “we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ,” as Paul writes to his disciple Titus (Titus 2:13). 

How can we hope, you might ask, when the world is so full of suffering and pain? 

We must realize that hope, by its very nature, is oriented towards something in the future that it longs for and expects, but that it does not yet possess.  We wait “in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the children of God,” says Paul, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves…groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.  For in hope we were saved. 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). It is true that suffering still surrounds us; but we do not despair because we believe in God, in God’s promises, and in God’s power and ultimate victory.  We await the appearing of our Saviour. 

Perhaps you are thinking, “That is well and good for those who find it easy to have faith, but how can I hope in God when by nature I do not trust God or love God or want to obey God?”  

We answer, In our own strength it is not possible; but with God, all things are possible.  Only God can change our hearts of stone to hearts of flesh.  Only God can lead us from doubt to faith, from fear to love.  Only God can overcome our despair and fill our hearts with hope.  Is there any true saint who can honestly say, “I overcame my rebellion against God?”  “I replaced my cold and indifferent heart with a heart filled with compassion”?  “I changed myself from a skeptic into a trusting child of God”?  No, when we speak of faith we say, “By grace I became a new person.  By grace my stubbornness and anger melted away.  By God’s grace I am what I am.”  From beginning to end it is all the work of God’s grace.  We cannot earn it or deserve it or merit it.  It is a free gift.  Simply believe it, rest in it, delight in it – and it is yours. 

This hope we have in God can become for us a reservoir of strength in times of need. 

When we are put down or attacked by others, we can look to the reservoir of hope for the strength to return good for evil.  Without hope, we have no power to absorb the wrong and respond with love.  Without hope, we resort to self-justification or self-pity.When we experience disappointments or setbacks, we can look to the reservoir of hope for the strength to keep going and not give up.  Without hope, we could easily succumb to despair.When we are overwhelmed by the tragedy and pain of suffering, our own or others’, we can look to the reservoir of hope for the strength to believe that a better day will come.  Mahatma Gandhi, the great spiritual leader of India, once said, “Whenever I despair, I remember that the way of truth and love has always won.  There may be tyrants and murderers, and for a time they may seem invincible, but in the end, they always fail.  Think of it: always.”  That is the perspective of faith.  Hope springs from faith.When we are overwhelmed by evil, we can look to the reservoir of hope for the strength to endure and the courage to stay true to our course.  Corrie Ten Boom, a Dutch woman who survived a Nazi concentration camp, once wrote:  “There is no pit so deep that God is not deeper still.”  That is the perspective of faith.  Hope springs from faith. 

“Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me?  HOPE IN GOD; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God. (Psalm 42:5)  In every season of your life, practice hope.  Live with hope, speak with hope, encourage others with hope.  In hope and expectation await the coming of our Salvation.

Hope (and I mean that as a certainty not an uncertainty) you have enjoyed knowing more about faith and now hope. May your faith in God and your hope in His character, promises, power and ultimate victory never wither, in Jesus' name, amen.

Faith and Hope....What Exactly Are They? Do we Get Them Wrong?

Many times in Christianity, the words faith and hope are often used. These are very common words in Christiandom, but it will amaze you how many Christians fail to understand what they truly mean. It will equally amaze you how many people use them wrongly. To clarify what faith and hope really are are two posts from ssje by Br. David Vryhof. May you come to truly understand what the Christian faith and hope really mean and begin to apply these meanings to your life!

What It Means to Have Faith in God – Br. David Vryhof

Something mysterious happens to us when we find something to believe in. We discover that some task, some project, some idea has so captured our imaginations that we want to give ourselves wholeheartedly to it. We become dedicated to its fulfilment. Perhaps it leads us to support a cause or join a campaign, perhaps to take up a new role or responsibility, perhaps to make a commitment of time, energy or financial resources.

Whatever it is, this new cause captures our attention and awakens our passion. We believe in what we are doing, and we commit ourselves to it with our whole being. We continue to push forward even when obstacles arise or doors close. Because we believe in our dream, we persevere.

We give ourselves wholeheartedly to it, because at some deep level – beyond the level of common sense or logic – we know that it is the right thing for us to do. We believe in this.

This is what faith is about.

Faith is at the center of Christian life. We profess that we have been saved by faith, and that we now live by faith. But what does it really mean to have faith? What does it really mean to believe?

This is an important question, especially in our day, because for a great many people, faith has first and foremost to do with assent. For them, to have faith means to give our intellectual assent to a proposition, to believe that a claim or statement is true. There are a great many Christians who understand their faith in this way. They have given intellectual assent to certain claims or statements about God, about Jesus, about the Bible, and about the human condition. But when faith is understood primarily in this way, it becomes a matter of the head rather than of the heart. When Christian faith is seen as assent, the emphasis shifts to holding the correct views, believing the right things to be true.

It is important to recognize how this notion of faith – faith as giving mental assent to a proposition, or believing that a claim or statement is true – limits and distorts our understanding and practice of Christian faith. What we believe to be true – about God, about Jesus, about the scriptures – then defines us and sets us apart from those who do not see things as we see them. Groups form and split. Some are considered “in” while others are “out,” depending on their “beliefs.”

The opposite of this kind of belief is doubt or disbelief. When we suspect that some claim or statement might not be true, or might have to be understood differently than we understood it in the past, we enter this grey area of doubt. If we imagine that belief is what God wants of us, the doubt or disbelief become sinful.

Knowing what we believe and being able to articulate it is important, but if this is all our faith is about, we have not gone deep enough. Authentic faith has more to do with the heart than with the head. Genuine faith involves trust. Christian faith, Christian belief, has to do with a radical trust in God. It does not mean trusting in the truth of a set of statements about God; it means trusting in God.

Who is this God in whom we trust?

In the course of our worship we regularly profess our faith in God using the words of ancient creeds of the Church. We profess that the God in whom we trust is the God who was revealed to us as the Creator, the God who was made known to us in Jesus of Nazareth whom we call Christ, the God who has stirred us up by the Spirit and united us together as the church, the Body of Christ. When we profess this faith, when we recite this ancient creed, we are not merely giving assent to a series of propositions about God, we are declaring our faith in God. We are saying that we believe in this God, that we have put our trust in this God, and that we have given ourselves wholeheartedly to the service and worship of this God. We are saying that we have willingly staked our lives and our future on God.

What does it mean to have faith, to believe and trust in God?

Marcus Borg cites a metaphor used by Soren Kierkegaard, a great philosopher and radical Christian of the 19th century, who claimed that faith was like floating in a deep ocean.[1] If we panic and struggle, Borg says, if we tense up and thrash about, we will eventually sink. But if we relax and trust, we will float, no matter how deep the water.

This is the challenge, isn’t it? Learning to relax in the water, to trust its buoyancy, to let go of our fear – all these are key to staying afloat in deep waters. In the same way, we could say that to have faith is to trust in God, to believe in God’s ability to sustain us, to hold us up, even in difficult circumstances. Faith helps us to relax and let go, to rest and find peace.

When faith is understood as trust rather than as assent, its opposite is not doubt or disbelief, but lack of trust. When we do not trust, we become anxious and fearful. To have faith means to let go of anxiety and fear, and to give ourselves over to God, trusting God’s love and care for us. “Do not worry about your life,” Jesus tells us, “what you will eat or what you will drink… Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” (Matthew 6:25, 26)

Observe the disciples in today’s gospel reading. They are gathered in a closed room, behind locked doors, filled with anxiety and trembling with fear. They have lost sight of the purpose for which God called them, the task which Jesus had given them, to be signs of God’s love in the world and proclaimers of God’s good news. They feel abandoned, alone and overwhelmed.

Jesus comes to them with a greeting of peace. He breathes on them the Holy Spirit. He restores their vision, their hope, their faith. They believe once more. Their fear is gone, and these trembling disciples are transformed into courageous witnesses, who testify to the resurrection of Jesus with incredible boldness, even in the face of opposition and death. They do not fear the power of men, but instead trust in the power of God. They are not deterred by hardship or persecution, by beatings or imprisonment. Their eyes are fixed on God. They move forward in faith, despite the obstacles.

There is much fear in the world today. We fear our enemies and those who intend us harm. We fear those who possess weapons of mass destruction; we fear nuclear proliferation; we fear guns and violence in our streets. We fear the warming of the earth and the consequences it will bring. We fear hatred and crime, poverty and oppression, chaos and suffering. Some of us are afraid that we might lose what we have, or that it might be taken away from us by others. We fear for our future and the future of our children.

But “perfect love casts out fear,” the author of First John tells us, and “God is love.” God’s perfect love overcomes fear and casts it out. Love holds us and sustains us, regardless of what may come our way. “Do not be anxious, you of little faith,” says Jesus. Trust in God. Entrust your lives and all your concerns to God.

Certainly, we must work against the forces of violence and war, we must respond to the threat of global warming, we must counter hatred and violence – these are all part of our call as Christians in the world. But we need not be bound by anxiety or paralyzed by fear. God is in our present, and will be in our future, just as God has been in our past. There is no power in the world that can overcome God’s power – even death itself has been defeated. Nothing, says Paul, can separate us from the love of God.

“Do not fear,” says God in the words of the prophet Isaiah, “for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame will not consume you… Do not fear, for I am with you” (Isaiah 43:1-5)

Are you anxious and afraid? What is it that worries or concerns you? Have faith in God. Trust God with your life and with your future. Let go of fear. God is faithful and will in all things sustain and keep you. Do not be afraid. Only believe.

[1] Borg, Marcus J.; The Heart of Christianity; chapter two.

Please endeavour to read the next post which will be the concluding part of this blog entry and will focus on hope. Do not forget to share and leave your comments!

When God Does Not Answer Your Prayer

In my last post, I described a situation where it seemed like God did not answer my prayer. I had prayed for a hitch free interview and the exact opposite happened. Why had God not answered me? Or did He answer me, albeit in some other way? Today, I'm going to use two messages to answer that question. One message is from one of my favourite pastors John Piper, and the other is from Vaneetha Rendall Demski, a freelance writer. John Piper's message, titled "Grace Denied and Grace Supplied" is taken from a Solid Joys devotion, while Vaneetha's message titled "When God Does The Miracle We Didn't Ask For" is taken from one of the posts on the Desiring God blog. It is my hope that these two messages will give you a new understanding of how God lovingly answers our prayers. His answers may not always come in the way we want, but be rest assured that however the answers come, they are ultimately for our greatest good. Please enjoy and don't forget to leave your comments.

John Piper wrote:

Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. (Acts 14:22)

The need for inner strength arises not just from the depletions of everyday stress, but from the suffering and afflictions that come from time to time. And they do come.
Suffering is inevitably added to heart-weariness on the way to heaven. When it comes, the heart wavers and the narrow way that leads to life looks impossibly hard. It’s hard enough to have a narrow road and tiring hills that test the jalopy’s strength to the limit. But what shall we do when the car breaks down?
Paul cried out three times with this question because of some affliction in his life. But God’s grace did not come in the form he asked. It came in another form. Christ answered, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
Here we see grace given in the form of Christ’s sustaining power in unrelieved affliction — one grace given in the circle of another grace denied. And Paul responded with faith in the sufficiency of this future grace: “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:9).
God often blesses us with a “grace given” in the circle of “grace denied.”
For example, on a beastly hot day in July, the water pump on our car stopped working, and twenty miles from any town we were stranded on the interstate in Tennessee.
I had prayed that morning that the car would work well and that we would come to our destination safely. No one was stopping as we stood around our car. Then my son Abraham (about eleven at the time) said, “Daddy, we should pray.” So we bowed behind the car and asked God for some future grace — a help in time of need. When we looked up, a pick-up truck had pulled over.
The driver was a mechanic who worked about twenty miles away. He said he would be willing to go get the parts and come back and fix the car. I rode with him to town and was able to share the gospel with him. We were on our way in about five hours.
Now the remarkable thing about that answer to our prayer is that it came inside the circle of a prayer denied. We asked for a trouble-free trip. God gave us trouble. But in the midst of a grace denied, we got a grace supplied. And I am learning to trust God’s wisdom in giving the grace that is best for me and for unbelieving mechanics and for the faith of eleven-year-old boys.
We should not be surprised that God gives us wonderful graces in the midst of suffering that we had asked him to spare us. He knows best how to apportion his grace for our good and for his glory.

Vaneetha Rendall Demski wrote:

Countless childhood surgeries. Yearlong stints in the hospital. Verbal and physical bullying from classmates. Multiple miscarriages as a young wife. The unexpected death of a child. A debilitating progressive disease. Riveting pain. Betrayal. A husband who leaves.

If it were up to me, I would have written my story differently. Not one of those phrases would be included. Each line represents something hard. Gut wrenching. Life changing.But now, in retrospect, I wouldn't erase a single line.Honestly, it is only in hindsight that I can make such a bold statement. Through all of those devastating events, I begged God to deliver me. To save my baby, to reverse my disease, to bring my husband back. Each time God said no. 

Instead of Deliverance 

“No” was not the answer I wanted. I was looking for miraculous answers to prayer, a return to normalcy, relief from the pain. I wanted the kind of grace that would deliver me from my circumstances.God, in his mercy, offered his sustaining grace.At first, I rejected it as insufficient. I wanted deliverance. Not sustenance. I wanted the pain to stop, not to be held up through the pain. I was just like the children of Israel who rejoiced at God’s delivering grace in the parting of the Red Sea, but complained bitterly at his sustaining grace in the provision of manna.With every heartache I wanted a Red Sea miracle. A miracle that would astonish the world, reward me for my faithfulness, make my life glorious. I didn't want manna.But God knew better. Each day he continued to put manna before me. At first, I grumbled. It seemed like second best. It wasn't the feast I envisioned. It was bland and monotonous. But after a while, I began to taste the manna, embrace it, and savor its sweetness. 

A Far Deeper Work 

This manna, this sustaining grace, is what upheld me. It revived me when I was weak. It drove me to my knees. And unlike delivering grace, which once received, inadvertently moved me to greater independence from God, sustaining grace kept me tethered to him. I needed it every day. Like manna, it was new every morning.God has delivered me and answered some prayers with a resounding “yes” in jaw-dropping, supernatural ways. I look back at them with gratitude and awe. Yet after those prayers were answered, I went back to my everyday life, often less dependent on God. But the answers of “no” or “wait,” and those answered by imperceptible degrees over time have done a far deeper work in my soul. They have kept me connected to the Giver and not his gifts. They have forced me to seek him. And in seeking him, I have discovered the intimacy of his fellowship.In the midst of my deepest pain, in the darkness, God’s presence has been unmistakable.Through excruciating struggles, he speaks to me. He comforts me through his word. He whispers to me in the dark, as I lie awake on my tear-stained pillow. He sings beautiful songs over me of his love. 

The Joy of His Manna 

At first, I just want the agony to go away. I don’t rejoice in the moment. I don’t rejoice at all. But as I cling to God and his promises, he sustains me. Joy is at first elusive. I have glimpses of delight, but it is mostly slow and incremental.Yet over time, I realize I have an inexplicable joy. Not in my circumstances but in the God who cares so fiercely for me. Eating the everyday, bland, sometimes unwelcome manna produces a joy beyond my wildest imaginings.I have found that this joy, which is often birthed out of suffering, can never be taken away; it only gets richer over time. My circumstances cannot diminish it. It produces lasting fruit like endurance, character, and hope. It draws me to God in breathtaking ways. It achieves a weight of glory that is beyond all comparison.I still pray earnestly for deliverance, for the many things I long to see changed, both in my life and in the world. That is right. It’s biblical. We need to bring our requests to God.But much as I long for deliverance, for delivering grace, I see the exquisite blessing in sustaining grace. It’s not about getting what I want; it’s about God giving me what I desperately need: himself.

If these messages resonated with you and you believe someone else needs to read them, don't hesitate to like and share.