I do not wish to douse anybody’s ball of sunshine, but when you walk in dark places, you learn that hope is a four letter word. Hope doesn’t put food on the table. Hope doesn’t pay the electric bill, it doesn’t put a roof over your head, and it sure doesn’t make your dreams come true.
Worse, hope can actually become an evil thing. Hope is why battered women stay in abusive relationships. They hope they can change him. They hope that the violence will stop. They hope he’ll go to counseling. When I worked at DV, every Friday, the day women liked to drop restraining orders and go back, we’d sigh and say,” hope has reared it’s ugly head once again.” Men too, they stay way past the breaking point in bad marriages because they hope they can make it work. Hope is what keeps alcoholics drinking, they hope that this time they’ll get different results. Hope makes drug addicts lie to themselves, they hope they can quit anytime they want. Somebody wise once said, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Yep, that’s hope for you. The one evil that Pandora did not let out of the box….
I do not serve a God of hope, although there are dozens of verses in the bible that suggest He is just that. No doubt the error is on my end, however I do not serve a God of hope, I serve a God of action. God did not sit back and hope that humans figured out how to overcome sin on our own, God had a plan, a ransom that He paid for us. God is a God of paradoxes. Salvation, “hope” for mankind was purchased in suffering and despair, “Father, why have you forsaken me?” God is a God of surrendered hope, as in, “it is finished.”
That is the God I know, a God that came to me as a child in the ninth circuit of hell where there was no hope. To this day that is where I still find Him the easiest, in those who have hit bottom, in those who have lost hope. I love their gallows humor, the tinkle of their self depreciating laughter. God is a God of redemption, of mercy, of healing and kindness. God is a God who often finds us when we have cast aside all hope.
“It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Today I’m upset with the church, with the “righteous,” more than the non believers. When you bind the truth about your neck or write it on the tablet of your heart, you have entered into a covenant, not a covenant of arrogance or self righteousness or petty pride, but a covenant of service. In America far too many churches have become churches for the beautiful people, the well off people. TV evangelists and mega churches preach false hope and self help sermons dripping with saccharine sweetness. Where I live, one of the loneliest places to be is sitting in one of our local churches. Loneliness I can do, despair I can do, it is that grieving of the Holy Spirit that I cannot bear.
In the Western world we are all about feeling good, about drawing happy faces on everything. We are also the people with the most mental disorders on the planet, the highest rates of depression and loneliness. One reason for this is that we have forgotten that you must walk through the pain to get to the fruits and the treasures on the other side. There are no shortcuts. Hope can only be found on the other side of despair.
I can swear to one thing, I’d rather be in the midst of despair with God at my side than hopeful without him. Blessed be His name, always.
cocoblaq said:
Just like faith without work is dead, didn’t is life without hope. Faith does work with hope. Faith in God can actually put food on your table and clothes on your back and even take your feet off the ground.
You can’t be spurred into action If you don’t hope it’ll turn out fine. Even If it doesn’t. Hope is what gets us out of bed every morning to strive for our daily bread.
It may not work out fine for the abused and such but such people are more disillusioned than hopeful.
And the feel good preaching isn’t only commonplace in the western world. It also abounds in third world Africa.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Thanks for your comment. Interesting to hear there are feel good preachers in 3rd world Africa. There’s nothing wrong with feeling good or sharing a positive message, but there is something wrong with promoting this idea that life is all about good times and the people who are not having good times must be doing life wrong.
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cocoblaq said:
“Poverty is a curse” “Barrenness is a result of some ancient family pagan ritual”
“If you are of God, No evil shall befall you”.
“My thoughts for you are not of evil…”
If you are not successful in whatever endeavour – business, academics, fruitfulness, you name it, you’re definitely doing something wrong.
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Denine Taylor said:
I love this so much truth.
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xPraetorius said:
Blessed be His name always!
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madblog said:
My husband and I were just talking today about the deplorable need our culture has to immediately feel good about everything. Everything. Mr. Williams’ utter despair and suicide is sad in a pretty and wistful sort of way. He’s just about congratulated. Gee what a shame he didn’t understand how much we all loved him. Oh well, he’s “free” now…
And I remember my disgust when we had a TV special with concert right on top of the two or three day old destruction of the World Trade Center, congratulating ourselves then too. We can never understand real hope or be moved to effective action if we are always desperately making everything out to be OK.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Oh, amen to that! We seem to be heavily invested in quick, feel good solutions. I was a bit horrified by the response to Robin Williams suicide, too. People were quick to rush in and try to paint a rosy picture. There are no winners in suicide, it’s a tragic loss that takes a piece of everybody else with it.
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writtenfoi said:
I think you should reblog this every month from now until the Lord takes you home. 🙂
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Odii said:
Beautiful. I thank you for this. We have made Christ a champion of wimps. It is very encouraging to find another person who thinks like this. We were called to hold conquered ground for a conqueror, not to walk through life looking and asking for treats.
Christ comes to make us strong, to put the power for action in our hands so that we can go and make things happen.
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