The Source of Hope

Life is hard.  Sometimes it seems impossible.  And, for many, even those words are woefully inadequate.  The one thing unimaginable to most of us is the degree to which some people struggle to get from one day to the next.  The smiles we see on the outside obscure the hell in which some sufferers find themselves.  It is easy for us to be glib and to offer the orthodox cliches of the church which are supposed to make suffering ones feel better, but instead of feeling better, they often only add to the sense of hopelessness.   

The early verses of the fifth chapter of Romans which speak of the a progression from suffering, to endurance to character to hope point us to the only basis we have for hope (Romans 5:3-5).  Hope is not found in changing circumstances which bring the pain and struggle to an end.  Sometimes there simply is no change.  No, instead the only real basis for hope is found in the love that God pours into our hearts through the ever present Holy Spirit  (Romans 5:5).   It is interesting that hope comes to us from an external source that is separate from any trial or difficulty experienced in our living.    

The Word from the Apostle Paul reminds us that we too often look in the wrong places in our search for something which will give us hope.  Our life is not in the hands of  a doctor, or caregiver without whom we do not think we can live, or in some inner well of determination and strength.  Each of these as well as the many other things to which we take hold in hope are changing and in the end, bound only by the finite and fragile nature of life.  God's love never changes.  It is unshakable.  From it we cannot be separated.  It is an anchor that holds us the heart of the God who has been with us since before the moment we know as our beginning and beyond that moment we know as our ending.  Our hope is found in this love which always fills us so much that it overflows from a heart inside the care of our Father God.