HOPE in the Freeze
Are you in a quiet space?
Read out loud:
26 Look up into the heavens. Who created all the stars? He brings them out like an army, one after another, calling each by its name. Because of his great power and incomparable strength, not a single one is missing. 27 O Jacob, how can you say the LORD does not see your troubles? O Israel, how can you say God ignores your rights? 28 Have you never heard? Have you never understood? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth. He never grows weak or weary. No one can measure the depths of his understanding. 29 He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless. 30 Even youths will become weak and tired, and young men will fall in exhaustion. 31 But those who trust in the LORD will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40:26–31 (NLT)
Hope is far from optimism. Optimism decides what is possible and then leans into what could be based upon what is known. Hope, on the other hand, is decidedly more plucky because hope believes in a future that cannot be imagined—or perhaps—is too audacious to even be uttered.
This is why I tie despair to hope. When we despair of the reality of the present, we are ready to be infused with hope that must come from beyond us. Conversely, if we tolerate the present or think that tomorrow will be better based on today’s human effort, we are imagining too small and are settling for too little.
“…hope is subversive, for it limits the grandiose pretension of the present, daring to announce that the present to which we have all made commitments is now called into question.” — Walter Brueggemann
So, listen to your despair. You might be deeply frustrated by your health. Go there. In despair you’re preparing yourself to anticipate a future health that cannot be attained by human work or knowledge, but by God alone.
He rescues. He gives. He completes. He restores. He infuses true hope.
He is the light of the world. Mankind cannot create light, but only receive light. Consider how the gospel writer John puts it:
4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. 5 The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
John 1:4–5 (NASB)
Imagine yourself trying to make light happen—we cannot. We have no capability to emit light on our own, but we can only admit the darkness we are in and receive the light that comes from our Maker. Jacques Ellul puts it well:
Our universe is made up of darkness; the more human knowledge advances, the more we understand this and the more the knowledge of the world advances, the more certain this becomes. The Light came. Not “one” light among others, as of course some lights might shine among people, but the light, “the light of all lights.” This light could dispel all darkness.
—Jacques Ellul
So, this week, as we consider hope, don’t try to avoid your despair. Rather, allow that despair to blast a hole in the false hopes of this present age. Money will fail. Empires all crumble. Economies don’t save anyone.
Don’t worry, God will meet you and will not abandon you. He’s especially good at catching you when you let go. So, let go. Cry as needed. Reach out to the Lord. He’s with you now.
Despair’s hidden twin is hope.
This week and next week, we will continue to build hope:
Honor All—Refuse Contempt
Operate by the Spirit—Refuse the Temptations of the Devil
Point to Jesus—Head Up not down
Expect Growth—Not loss
Conclude this devotion by re-reading Isaiah:
26 Look up into the heavens. Who created all the stars? He brings them out like an army, one after another, calling each by its name. Because of his great power and incomparable strength, not a single one is missing. 27 O Jacob, how can you say the LORD does not see your troubles? O Israel, how can you say God ignores your rights? 28 Have you never heard? Have you never understood? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth. He never grows weak or weary. No one can measure the depths of his understanding. 29 He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless. 30 Even youths will become weak and tired, and young men will fall in exhaustion. 31 But those who trust in the LORD will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40:26–31 (NLT)
