Love Always Hopes

 by Laura Bazal

Hope - to look forward with desire or reasonable confidence.

Hope - a person or thing in which trust is centered

Hope - to feel that something desired may happen.

Ryken states that Love always hopes and never loses confidence in the hope “about the goodness of God and his power to work in someone else’s life” (107).  If you, like me, know anyone who is not a Christian, and if you, like me, has prayed for that person to become a Christian for what seems like an endless amount of time, it is quite easy to lose this kind of hope when it’s sustained by evidences of change in another rather than the constancy of God’s love.  

The chapter was challenging indeed – if I really want to hope in the right way, I need to hope the way Jesus hoped in John 17.  Jesus hoped that we would be saved, that we would be protected from the Evil One, and that we would be sanctified to Him and unified with each other.  Why could Jesus hope this?  

It’s because he know that God’s Love was the determining factor in whether or not these things could come to fruition.  This same source of hope in the Father was what supplied him his strength and commitment to his father’s will – that the Father would still love him and raise him from the depths of sin (our sin) that Jesus fully and completely took on himself so we may be saved.  

Jesus loved God enough to hope that we, sinners, would be saved and desire God’s glory.  It was challenging for me to understand this idea more deeply.  To love is to hope – not hope sometimes, not hope when it’s easy, and not hope when I feel that I or someone deserves it.  Hope always.  Have hope in all things.  Hope now and until you are in Heaven with the Triune God.  

I will fully admit – there have been times where I just won’t hope.  

For a period of time during my experience with infertility, I settled into the numbness of continued disappointment and barely engaged in a glimmer of God’s hope.  Why should I hope if nothing is going to happen?  

I also struggle to hope when I see loved ones continually reject God.  Why should I hope if they have no desire to know him? 

Then there’s insecurity, loneliness, and persistent seasons of depression that are like a constant unwanted companion sitting at my side.  Why should I hope against these things if I know they will be back time and again?  

Why?  From God:

Romans 5: Therefore, having been justified by faith, ^[a]we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ² through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and ^[b]we exult in hope of the glory of God. ³ And not only this, but ^[c]we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; ⁴ and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; ⁵ and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

I can trust that when God says for us to have hope, I can because of the constancy of his love.  He shows me how to hope and what to hope in, not just for my comfort or for my satisfaction it its own end, but for the ultimate glorification of Him in everything.