What Hope Looks Like

 Somehow, I'm starting to realize hope doesn't often look like what I expect. Along the journey to Grace, I'm discovering, little bit by little bit, that hope surprises. Hope comes in unexpected ways that challenge everything you thought you knew. Changes your perspective as it forces you to see it in new and fresh outlooks. 

For so much of your life, you think hope looks like receiving what you pray for, watching things play out how you expect. But as you live, pain and all things unknown and un-planned call on you to believe in the "evidence of things not seen." And your view of hope begins to be re-made as you realize what true hope looks like. 

If I've picked up on any themes, seen any patterns, learned any lessons on hope, I've realized... 

Hope sometimes looks like goodbyes and endings. 

Hope sometimes looks like opening up the hands and letting them be emptied so they can be filled. 

Hope sometimes looks like trusting in the face of the divine "no" in your life. 

Hope sometimes looks like taking the hard way through when you'd like an easier way to. 

Hope sometimes looks like removal to make space for replacement. 

Hope sometimes looks the opposite of what I'd choose. But it's what He chooses and His choice is all that matters. 

So many times, I've stared at Scripture talking about the reality of hope when hope has felt the furthest away from me and I've wondered how such belief can be possible when your world is crashing down. When all it feels like is more sadness, more pain, more grief, more dying, more fighting. When all you really want is to feel again... never mind feeling joy...you just want to stop feeling numb to it all. Where is hope then? Where is God then? 

And then I'm reminded again... 

"Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is" (Jeremiah 17:7). 

Hope looks like the Innocent hanging on a tree. Being buried in a grave. So He can rise again. 

And hope in my life often looks like the worst thing temporarily because it's about to birth the best thing. 

I cannot judge hope by the present. Only by the past. Because past faithfulness breeds trust for future hope. And the present seeds my faith for what's to come because all it takes is one look back over my shoulder for me to see that He's always been there, always will be. Hope is Himself the center of it all. With Him, there is constant redeeming, forever re-making. And all our current soul-shakeups are simply making a way for Him to do a new thing. For streams to flow in our deserts. For light to shine through all the heart-cracks. For love to come into the broken spaces and give them life. 

Through it all, I have to keep telling myself that Hope always has the final word. That Hope never shows up how I plan or expect Him to. But He's always on time. He's always on point. And He's always moving forward with nothing but goodness in mind. I can conclude currently that all this heartache is final and that hope will not come. But... when did He ever not come? And isn't the One who came to a manger in Bethlehem and went on to die on the cross and rise again still coming to us now? 

Isn't Emmanuel still "God with us" even today?