21 Days of Hope
Day 3
Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the
greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:13 NLT
Hope - It’s not just for the weak. Hope is for the strong and the weak alike. Hope is for everyone. Why, then, do we reserve talking about it until we encounter someone in crisis or someone who is sinking into despair? Seems to me, we’ve fallen for the lie that hope is in fact for weak people. This thought runs over into our value system and causes us to devalue the subject of hope to people who are supposed to be able to give a reason for our hope! Oops! Maybe we should revisit the subject of hope again.
The apostle Paul tells the church in Corinth that a lot of things will pass away, like prophesy and knowledge, when all has been perfected; completed. However, three things “remain” or “last forever.” Guess what is in the line up of lasting forever? You got that right! Hope! Now, growing up in and around church, I’ve heard a lot of talk and sermons on faith and on love. Don’t get me wrong here. These are absolutely necessary. If love is the greatest, then we need to hear a lot about love. If faith is the initiator and how we continue to live this life, then we need to hear often about faith too! How, then, is it that we so easily leave out the middle? Come on! Why do we hear the birds chirping and the pin dropping when it comes to hope? It is, after all, in the line up of the three things that remain - FOREVER! So then, it is NOT something that only “weak” people need to hear about. It IS a subject that everyone everywhere NEEDS to hear about and often.
When I first realized it was in the lineup of things that last forever (as in eternal) I imagined the angels, four living creatures and the elders all walking and flying around in a perpetual and constant state of expectation of good. Not only are they amazed at the holiness, beauty and splendor of God but they continually marvel and experience hope - something good is about to be experienced again and again. This is part of the hope that we have now. Not that we won’t experience bad things but that we can experience God this side of heaven and when we experience him we experience hope!
