The StoriedHope Series: Part 1

Hope. It’s a word that has been tossed around in all kinds of situations. A catchphrase. A buzzword. A campaign slogan. A book title. All pointing to our deeply-felt belief that life is not as good as it could be.

The dictionary defines hope as a “desire accompanied by expectation of or belief in fulfillment.”

In other words, there’s something we want and we think it’s possible to get it.

What do we want?

At first it may seem like we all want something different. Maybe you want a better job, but your neighbor would say they just want their team to win the Super Bowl. Maybe someone says they want world peace, and another desperately wants a loved one to win a fight with cancer. We may want different things, but all our wants are similar on a deeper level: we want things to get better.

We’re looking for a reason to expect better things to come. We know our life isn’t perfect, but we are looking for a reason to expect it to improve. We’re looking for assurance that this job/relationship/move will work out.

But life doesn’t always get better. Grandpa’s cancer relapses. The job prospects fizzle out. And world peace never looked so unattainable.

Or maybe circumstances do improve for awhile, but soon something else goes wrong. Maybe we do get a better job, but then realize we’re matched with frustrating co-workers. Even when life is smooth sailing – which is rare – it often doesn’t feel like enough.

Our circumstances aren’t strong enough to support our hope. We want to know that we will be okay, and life can’t promise us that.

Only Jesus can promise us a happy ending.

Looking for hope in all the wrong places

But all too often we don’t look to Jesus for our hope. Even Christians forget and turn to temporary things to hold our hope.

We put our hope in processes, formulas, job skills classes or self-help books. We ask friends for advice or join a support group.

We think that all these tactics will make life better, and sometimes we think this is enough. But these things can’t support our hope.

So we worry. Our fears of an imperfect future crowd out peace in our life now and squash our hope. We live in pursuit of the opposite of our fears, often at the expense of relationships or career, scrambling for control as a poor substitute for hope.

Soon we’re trying to dull that ache for hope. We turn to food or Netflix to drown out our soul’s cry for hope we think is out of reach.

The upside

All this may seem like looking for hope is pointless. But only if we keep looking in the wrong places.

Hope is good. Hope reminds us that our circumstances are not the whole picture. There is more to life – for all of us.

We’re wired to look for hope. During WWII, C.S. Lewis said, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

When we settle for a pseudo-hope, we’re disappointed. But when we seek out the only true hope, nothing can shake us. No matter what life circumstances come our way, our hope is strong and eternal. All because of a Story about a man named Jesus.