Crisis of Hope

********Cliffnotes available at page bottom***************************

1 Corinthians 13 is called by many the “Love Chapter,” and is quoted at many of the wedding that I have attended. As chapter 13 opens, it does speak of love’s many attributes. As the chapter progresses, it shifts a little and speaks of our limited earthly perspective. “We now see as through a glass darkly…” it continues, putting more truth to poetry. But the chapter ends with this phrase that has long intrigued me

“Now these three things remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

It isn’t the last few words that have for so long, captured my attention. After all who could deny the greatest is love. What has captured my attention is the list. The list of three, faith, hope and love. What makes these three attributes stand above the rest? What is their significance to us as Christians. What is their relationship to each other?

The first is a no-brainer. Love is the greatest. The Bible says that God is love. Love binds together the body of Christ, or the church. In fact, so much ink in the Bible is dedicated to the topic of “love” that I never doubted that love would top such a list.

Undoubtedly faith also would have made my list, if I were to write a list of three. The Bible says that without faith it is impossible to please God. In reading the gospel accounts of the miracles of Jesus, we read over and over Jesus say the words “your faith has healed you.” It seems that faith is an essential ingredient in the miracles of God. Faith enabled Peter to walk on water. Jesus said that if we had faith the size of a mustard seed we could move mountains. The book of James links faith with works or action. In fact, the author wrote that faith without works is dead. For faith to be real, it has to be linked to action. Faith is our shield. Of course faith belongs on the list.

But what then of hope? Why is hope included in the list of the big three? What am I not seeing here?

For the past decade, I have been alarmed at the increased hopelessness of my generation. Information barrages us constantly. There is global warming, the melting of the icecaps and other awaiting environmental catastrophes. There are millions of starving children in Africa. There are crazy dictators pursuing nuclear arms, and terrorists aiming at America. There are incurable diseases of AIDS and other “epidemics” who’s spread at any time threaten our global community. There are gangs, violence and drugs with all their sociological effects. There are daycare workers beating children, kidnappers, and killers. We are told that social security will be bankrupt by the time we are of age to use it, and I have heard people talking of what they’ll do when the next depression hits; when it all comes down to guns and bunkers. We have been told that Islam is growing and Christianity is slowing, at a time in world history when population is exploding. Amongst all of this “information” that we hear on a daily basis, where is the hope? Are we losing our hope? Have we entered a Crisis of Hope? And if so, what are the implications? What will be the effects? And why again, is hope on the list of the Big Three?

In pondering all of this a couple days ago, I began to once again think about many of the miracles that Christ preformed. Yes, it is true that according to Jesus their “faith had healed them.” It was because of their faith that Jesus COULD heal them that initially brought them to the Master’s side. But it was hope that Jesus WOULD heal them that motivated that faith to act. And maybe that is it. Maybe that is the relationship. Hope motivates faith to act… and when faith acts, miracles can happen. Think of it like this, we are all sailboats, and faith is what our sails are made of. Faith enables us to move. But hope, is the mast. It holds the sail. Just like a sail boat with a sail and no mast doesn’t move, so faith with no hope is worthless. In the same way, hope without faith, is like sailboat with a mast that has its sails put down… it will never move. No not until faith is hoisted on hope do things begin to happen.

The more I think about the analogy, the more I like it. I know, all analogies have short comings, but let’s explore this concept a little more. When storms begin on the oceans, the first thing a good sailor does is to drop the sails. If he doesn’t, he risks getting beat up by the wind and getting blown off course. And if the wind blows hard enough, it can actually break the mast. And without a mast, after the storm passes, the ship drifts at the mercy of the sea. Now think of how this could apply in our lives. Sometimes when the storms begin to rage in our lives we should drop our sails (not our hope). We don’t stop hoping, but dropping our sails prevents us from acting. With our hope secure and patience to wait to act until the storm passes we can get through many hardships. But when we act too quickly in the midst of hard times, we often find ourselves in more trouble. And sometimes when the winds blow hard enough, and the circumstances become difficult enough, we get caught in a cycle of acting and reacting and our hope can break. And with our hope broken, we loose our direction.

I think of the old navel battles that I read about in school. How the three-masted battleships would come up broadside one with another, and shoot their canons at each other. One of the goals being to destroy the opponent’s mast. Because every gunner knew that without a mast, the enemy’s ship would be paralyzed. Paralyzed: unable to run, unable to persue. I think of how this could apply to us. Though we sometimes forget it, the Bible tells us that we are engaged in a war. And I wonder if our enemy hasn’t intentionally aimed his weapons at destroying our hope. Because he knows that a Christian without hope is paralyzed. I look at the hopelessness that is being bred by some of the things that I wrote about a few paragraphs before, and I wonder if this hopelessness is resulting in apathy. All of which in turn, will render us completely ineffective as Christians.

As Christians, where is our hope? If hope is the ingredient that sustains our faith, and enables it to act… in what should we hope? Is our hope secure, or has it taken a beating in these turbulent times? Returning to the boat analogy, in a sense, a sailboat is built around the mast. The mast in turn holds the sail that propels the boat. The mast is at the heart of the ship, and as such, it has to be protected. In the same way, our hope is at the heart of who we are, and as such, it should also be protected.

As a culture, it seems that we are becoming more and more pessimistic. Is our pessimism as a society reducing our capacity to achieve? I think back in history of people who did incredible things. I think to the soldiers preparing to storm the beaches of Normandy. And I think how things could have been different had every soldier thought “oh well, Hitler has already won. What is the use?” How different history would have been written.

As Christians, the Bible is absolutely full of verses and stories that provide hope.

The word “hope” occurs 121 times in the King James translation of the Bible. And what is truly interesting is which authors used this word the most in their writings. Job, David, Jeremiah and Paul all found themselves often concentrating on the subject. These were all people who knew how to suffer and to suffering unjustly. The hope that many of these men had was independent of their surroundings. Their hope was secure. Hope would have been on their “list of three.”

So my question today is: To what do we secure our hope? Do we hope and believe with the same steadfastness as these men, the promises of God’s Word? Do we live with the hope of heaven? Do we hope and believe that one day God will set things right? How firm is our hope and belief that God will take care of us today? Or are we as a people; are we as a Church, slowly loosing our hope? And in doing so, slowly loosing our direction?

All this is not to say that the situation is hopeless or beyond remedy. The Word is absolutely full of hope. There exists a hope that will never fail. A hope that will not disappoint. A hope that will not leave us shaken. And that hope, according to 1 Tim. 1:1, is Christ Himself.

As far as prayer request, please continue to pray for our funding. Pray also for the OMS confrence that I'll be attending in the end of June. It will be the longest time I've been away from my family since Samara was born.

Thanks for being a part of the team,

for the only Cause that matters,

Micah and Marla, Samara and Noelle

ps. the first couple pictures are of Samara on a particularly warm spring day. The pictures of Noelle... well... I had a naked baby and a bear rug at my disposal, what would you have done?

********Cliffnotes: Crisis of Hope******************************************

In his writtings to the Corinthian church, Paul penned these words. Yet these three remain; faith, hope and love. Of the list faith and love get alot of press, but what of hope. What is it's role in the Christian's life, and what is its relationship to the other two attributes. In this e-mail I explored some ideas of just why hope was considered so important. The quest to successfully answer this question in my own head is not yet over, but through an analogy of a sailboat, I think I'm learning more of how faith and hope are so vitally linked to one another