Dream Epiphany 1: Hope

May 17, 2015

In the last few days, I have been struck by epiphanies as I sleep. I’ll share the first one for this post: Hope creates. Where there is longing, the thing or end desired comes alive so that as one hopes, one creates. That doesn’t necessarily mean that longings immediately (or ever) materialize, but where there is yearning, when hope is strong like rock (as true hope is), a certain reality joins those desires so that something is created in hope.

Not only that, but hope creates the means to pursue the end; it clarifies the directions needed to take or try to see that the longings do, in time, find their existence. In this case, hope fuels the creation of its ends with the tenacity to see them through.

Finally, the death of hope most confirms the idea that hope creates. When hope is lost, the heart mourns. Hope takes the whole of one’s being. Hoping is when you’re banking the whole of your life on a veiled answer, waiting for it to arrive finally in your hands. We can hope for trivial things, but I’m thinking here about the things that are much greater. Longing for relations to improve between you and a loved one, persevering to reach graduation day at last, holding out for someone who would make a good spouse, waiting for the Lord’s provision, waiting for acceptance to do a certain kind of work, for certain things to get better in the church, etc. If for any reason, one feels there is no longer reason to hope for the thing desired, real loss ensues. When hope dies, something real inside also shatters. Because the loss is real, the thing hoped for must also be real as well.

Proverbs 13:12 tells us, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” If you’ve experienced this kind of deferral, then you know that it’s real. But this verse ends with reason to hope. “[A]nd hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:5). Hope finds its anchor in Jesus, since we know that the character of God’s purpose is unchangeable (Hebrews 6). We have real hope in God. Let it be to the creation and pursuit of desires that are in accord with the purpose of his heart and mind.