No + Hope = Nope

Hope. Another word in my bundle of words.

There was a time I did not like hope at all. Nope. No hope for me. I was not a fan.

Maybe it was a character flaw. Or maybe, as Proverbs 13:12 would attest, it was the natural result of a long, weary road of unfulfilled longing.

“Hope deferred makes a heart sick.”

I agree with Emily Dickinson’s first stanza, that hope is the thing with feathers that sings and sings. It sings that the first sign of cancer, or addiction, or an inconstant heart in one we love, will be the last. It sings this song even when there’s a second sign. A third. A fourth. It’s just–and I know this sounds terrible–I eventually come to wish that little bird would hush up and go away.

In my experience, those feathers grow scratchy and the song becomes strident somewhere around the eighth or ninth year of hope-songs. When one time-to-give-up sign shows up after another, with ever bigger and bolder letters of NOPE? Well, it seems to me those concrete signs make a fool of ethereal hope.

There comes a time on the longest roads when the only comfort you find is in the idea of settling into the expected, however much you would never choose the thing you’ve come to expect. There comes a moment when hope’s relentless song of maybe this time remission or sobriety will last, or this time the job will come through or maybe he really means he’s sorry this time makes a person long for a hopeless, featherless bird to just come singing,

This is the way it will always be, so get used to it.

 

Getting used to it may not be an attractive option, but at least it seems possible, and maybe even smart. It can feel smarter to opt for stable roots of pessimism over wind-tossed wings of hope. For pessimism is rarely disappointed. And if by some miracle your pessimistic predictions are proven wrong, there’s not much sting in that kind of disappointment, is there? It’s a win-win!

So, that’s the smart, hope-weary tactic I chose. I boarded up my windows against that feathered beast and blasted a Just the Way It Is song at a volume with which no birdsong could compete. And I really hoped it would work.

Only, it didn’t.

Hope is a persevering sort of bird, relentlessly pecking tiny holes in every I-won’t-care wall you manage to erect. However much you reinforce your walls against that little bird, enticing little hopeful signs find the cracks and push their way in. And there you are, set-up once again. Vulnerable to the threat of new disappointments. (Or is that just me?)

I’m mostly friends with hope again. Along the way in my double-decade story, I came to see my problem wasn’t with hope, but with the object of it. I’ve since learned that building hope on the uncertain ground of sobriety or remission or a person’s constant faithful love can never provide the kind of security I long for. Because cancer can always come back. A streak of sobriety can end in a moment, an untimely frost (both literal and figurative) can strip away the full-blossomed promise of spring harvest.

What we want is a sure hope. A hope that stands strong and true whichever way health or human love may go.

I realize this is starting to sound like a commercial –

 

Is your old worn-out hope letting you down? We’ve got you covered!

Try new and improved Hope with the can’t-fail formula!

Guaranteed to hold up under fire, flood, draught, hurricane, earthquake, and even tornado.

 

You probably already know the secret ingredient to this kind of hope. I bet you’ve sung this hopebird’s song in a Sunday chorus or two. If you’ve dipped into scripture at all, you’ve surely read of it there.

“But this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is Your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion says my soul. Therefore I will hope in Him.” Lamentations 3:21-24

The steadfast love of the Lord. Sounds like something you want to stitch onto a pillowcase, right? At least at first reading. But this is smack dab in the middle of Lamentations, a book famous for its misery. Take a look at what comes just three verses before –

“I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, “My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the Lord.”

Which might be okay if Jeremiah’s Therefore I will hope in Him wasn’t sandwiched between that verse and this one —

“You have wrapped Yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can pass through.”

And then comes this —

“You came near when I called on You; You said, ‘Do not fear!'”

Do you see what I mean about hope being relentless?

The whole book of Lamentations is a sort of tennis match between hope and despair. And twenty-six centuries later the world is still lobbing that ball back and forth from one side to the other. Only it’s not a tennis match, it’s war. A war where rejoicing pairs with suffering, and glory with tribulation for a surprising kind of peace song.

“Since we have been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him we have also obtained access to this grace in which we stand in HOPE of the glory of God. And not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, and not only that but we glory in our tribulation, knowing that suffering and tribulation produce perseverance and endurance, and perseverance and endurance produce character, and character HOPE. Now HOPE does not disappoint, for the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who gave it to us.” (from Romans 5:1-5)

It may feel safer, at times, to tune out all hope than to trust in a hope that doesn’t seem to mind letting us suffer. But if we say yes to that hope, we say yes to something stronger than suffering, for this hope springs from the mysterious love of God that has been poured into our hearts.

This next passage is a favorite of mine and a strong theme in my first novel (95% finished now). The word hope isn’t here, but I think you’ll see how it relates.

“Though the fig tree may not blossom,

Nor fruit be on the vines;

Though the labor of the olive may fail,

And the fields yield no food;

Though the flock may be cut off from the fold,

And there be no herd in the stalls –

Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation. (Habakkuk 3:17-18 NKJV)

So there you have it, a hope that isn’t dependent on fragile blossoms, fruit, or flocks. A call to join that little bird in singing hope songs like this –

My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness

On Christ the Solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.

So, sing on little bird. (Who knew the thing with feathers would turn out to be a Rock star?)

“‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul. ‘Therefore, I will hope in Him.'”

Though it is true that hope deferred makes a heart sick, there is more to the story as there is more to the proverb.

“Hope deferred makes a heart sick,

But a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” Proverbs 13:12

 

 

How about you? Do you ever feel like life would be more comfortable if you could just stop hoping? Do you find hope revives even when you don’t particularly want it to? What keeps you singing hope songs when everything is hard and heavy? What hope Scriptures do you go to when hope is hard?