Hope After TraumaSample

"Hopelessness"

Hope is what gets us up in the morning and motivates us to achieve! It is the confidence that if we put in the time and energy we will one day experience success. Our careers, relationships and dreams will be victoriously realized if only we try hard enough.

Hope departs when we conclude that we can never try hard enough. Failures in life coupled with unrealized dreams and the trauma of life drives us to a place of despair with no thought or expectation of victory. We begin to believe that “it just doesn’t matter” because even at our best we are not good enough. We turn in our zeal for life and accomplishment for the simple desire to just “make it.” Hope gives way to simply hanging on for another day.

Our reading plan today puts hope in a new perspective. For the person that has a relationship with Christ, life is not lived in an attempt to obtain the victory, it is lived because of the victory! Victory is not something that we have to work for but rather something that has been eternally secured by the life, death and resurrection of Christ! When He rose again He secured the ultimate victory for all who believe in Him! This changes our focus from “obtaining” to “being!” Being what we were created to be and living for Him instead of obtaining the moving target of success. We have hope because of what was done and not because of what may happen.

The despair of hopelessness tells us that we can never experience victory. The hope of Christ tells us that we already have. Move from the “hope so” of life to the confident assurance found in Christ!