Hope Against Hope

 Hope is very fragile. Liken it to an elusive feather floating in the breeze. Just about the time you think you have hold of it a waft of wind blows it out of reach. Or at least hope can feel that way. Once you get a handle on it, something happens causing hope to slip between your fingers. 

The optimist lives with hope. They see the glass half-filled instead of half emptied. They look on the bright side of life. They see the silver lining in the clouds. The pessimist on the other hand, takes a much dimmer approach to life. They see the glass half emptied. They fixate on the dark side of life. They miss the silver lining in the clouds. The pessimist has a hard time with hope. Even when things are going well, they sit waiting for the next bad thing to happen. 

What about for Christians? We are supposed to be people of faith. [II Cor 5:7] We are to live by faith and not sight. Part of that living by faith is living with the hope that God will come through. We invite God to intervene in our circumstances. We make supplication for His strong help in various degrees. We are exhorted that without faith it is impossible to please God. [Heb 11:6] We are supposed to be people with hope. 

Let's define hope as confident expectation. We pray about things with the confident expectation that God hears us and that He involves Himself in the solution to our problems. That sounds great in theory. Sooner or later, we will face something big requiring God to help. We pray. We expect Him to answer. We wait in hope. Time ticks and God doesn't answer the way we want Him to do. We pray again and wait longer. Hope that once burned brightly now begins to slowly fade. If the answered prayer is delayed further hope begins to flicker. If we wait too long hope can extinguish. 

That is what makes the story of [Romans 4:18-21] all the more powerful. We have a guy praying in faith with hope. The prayer was not answered right away. In fact, it was not answered for decades. One of the amazing things is the man praying did not lose hope. The passage informs us that he maintained hope against hope. 

The man in the story is Abraham praying for a son. A promised son. He waited well over two decades for God to answer that prayer. That is a long time to wait in hope. Abraham believed God when his circumstances dictated doubt. Abraham and Sarah were aging. Sarah had never been able to conceive. The only hope they had was a promise from God. The promise went much deeper than for a son. It included a future nation. With each passing delay that promise may have seemed more elusive. 

When delays happen the natural thing to do is to grow weaker in our faith. Delays do not make us grow stronger very often except for the mature in faith. Strong people of faith and prayer can contemplate their circumstances. They take stock of the difficulties and on occasion even the impossibilities. They are not fazed by the things. They see them as an opportunity for God to do something amazing. This gives them hope against hope. 

Hope for mature believers is rooted in two things. The promises of God and His faithfulness to keep those promises. God promised Abraham he would be the father of a great nation. That did not seem it was ever going to happen when Sarah could not even conceive of the first son. On top of that, she was past the age of childbearing at 90. God's delays do not mean He does not care. His timing is perfect. He orchestrates things very often to look impossible so that He can get the maximum glory when He comes through. 

Do we believe what God says, or do we believe what our eyes see? This is a question we will face numerous times in our life journey. Do we waver in unbelief or stay rooted in God's word trusting Him to help at the proper time? To do that we must grow strong in faith. 

If we want to grow strong in faith, we have to get used to God exercising faith through trials, challenges, and even impossible obstacles placed before us. Each of those is designed to force us to exercise more faith resulting in stronger faith. Faith is defined for us in [Heb 11:1]. It is assurance and confidence. It is believing God for things to exist before they actually exist. It seeing the unseen and asking God to make it happen. How is that possible. Because with hope against hope we are assured by the promises of God. What God says He does. He keeps His promises. For that reason, we can hope against hope no matter what we face or how long the answer is delayed.