Where is Hope Taking Us?

To see what hope is pointing us towards, where it is taking us, it may help us to look backwards before we can look forward. If we don’t perceive the echo of Eden in our soul - that terrible loss of something that seems just out of reach and apprehension - and if we don’t have a hope for a new heavens and new earth, in which dwells true righteousness, we are so much less than we could and should be. 

We have been exiled from our true home and somehow, we know it. We can’t go back so we try to fill in the spaces, but nothing properly fits or satisfies. It was Augustine who sagely opined, “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.” ( Augustine of Hippo. Confessions) If this world completely and truly assuages the hunger within the human soul and doesn’t leave a persistent emptiness we are to be pitied, and we are short on hope. In fact, we have lost hope – real hope. We may retain an ebullient optimism, but this isn’t the hope held out in the gospel, the hope so necessary for our well-being.  

The Western world has enjoyed such riches that life has become so much easier. We have drunk our fill from this fountain and mistaken it for the kingdom of God. Has prosperity has numbed our souls? Has it lulled us into a dreamy sleep, so that we don’t question this interior fogginess? Have we forgotten the values of hard work, restraint, struggle, suffering, moral virtue, reason, authority, and delayed satisfaction?

Hope should define the people of God. Ask yourself if this is true of you today. Christians should be careful not to be defined as the world might suggest: by rights (as in, preferences elevated to moral rights), entitlement, unreasonable expectations, and demands. These should not define and frame us, whereas hope should – “always being prepared to make a defence to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.” ( 1 Peter 3:15 ESV ) This doesn’t refer to a rational apologetic defence, but a recognition by others that something fascinating, ethically rich, and other worldly motivates the believer – they/we have hope.  

In the most prosperous nations, despair is at an all-time high, suicide rates continue to increase, and hope is needed by so many! Living only for today is not living – we do our best living by living with tomorrow in mind – God’s tomorrow, that is. 

This is - Hope Reframed.