Right now, it’s easy to lose hope. People are losing their jobs. We can’t do any of the things we normally do. The quarantine keeps getting extended and no one knows when it will end. People are lonely. We’re all a little scared of what’s happening in our world right now.
On top of all the virus-related disruption, people are experiencing a lack of hope in other areas of their lives too. Some are single and thinking they’ll never get married. Others are married but doubt their marriage will ever be what it should be. There are women desperately hoping to get pregnant. Parents are out there who long for their children to get back on a healthy track. Some are facing medical issues that seem to have no end. We can look at the pain, loneliness, death, destruction, and brokenness in our world and it’s easy to lose hope.
Why Faith Gives Us Hope
Often, our faith doesn’t give us much hope. Christian belief is centered on the fact that a perfect man (who is also God) was unfairly persecuted and killed. it doesn’t seem very hopeful at that point. Jesus’ death is important, but it’s not the most important part. It’s not the end of the story.
John chapter 20 tells us that though Jesus clearly died, he didn’t stay that way. After being dead for three days, Jesus was raised back to life. He wasn’t a ghost or a vision that his disciples saw. He was alive and well, walking and eating and teaching and being with people. He defeated death.
Why The Resurrection Is Important
This isn’t just important because it’s miraculous. It’s important because of the long term significance. Death was never God’s plan. Death didn’t come onto the scene until Satan convinced the first man and woman to disobey God (Genesis 3). Death is Satan’s territory. Sin, pain, suffering, injustice, are all part of Satan’s dominion.
When Jesus died, he entered into Satan’s world. He fought Satan in his own territory and He defeated him. Death could not hold Jesus because he defeated it. He returned to this world alive and well to demonstrate that he has defeated all the forces of evil and suffering in this world. Jesus’ resurrection is the ultimate evidence that God wins and Satan can’t do anything about it.
Now, the story is not complete yet. Satan still has a foothold in this world. He’s like an evil villain whose plot has been thwarted, but he’s trying to do all the damage he can before he gets caught himself. He might still be at work, but he knows he’s lost. The bad guy is defeated. The good guys win. We can walk through any and every scenario in this life with hope because we know that we’re on the winning side.
Living Out Hope
We can be bold in our hope because this hope will not put us to shame (Romans 5:5). Even when the odds are stacked against us, we don’t have to despair. God can do amazing things. God has done amazing things. God will do amazing things again.
How can we live out the hope that we have in Jesus?
Surround yourself with people who can hope with you.
Our hope isn’t just wishful thinking, it’s founded on facts. However, that doesn’t mean that living a hope-filled life is easy. We all have times where we fall prey to despair. We’re only human after all.
Don’t be afraid to hope or to tell others what you’re hoping for. Be bold in asking others to pray for you and check in on you. They can be there to point out ways that God’s working that you might have missed. They can also pick you up when you’re feeling down. We all need people in our lives to help keep hope alive. Make sure you find yours! If you don’t have these people in your life right now, join one of our Connect Groups that are starting soon. This is a great way to meet other people who are trying to follow Jesus together.
Look to the past to remind yourself of what God can do in the future.
We have holidays like Easter because they remind us of God’s faithfulness. Even before the time of Jesus, God gave the Jewish people holidays and festivals that would remind them of what he had already done for them. God knows that we have a short memory. We need constant reminders of God’s faithfulness.
Use holidays like Easter and Christmas to remind yourself of what God has done for others and what he has done for you. Make sure you’re reading the Bible and learning about how God has provided for people. Read biographies of men and women in history and see how God was faithful in their lives. Periodically go back through your journal or old photos to remind yourself of what God has done in your own life. God has been faithful in the past. God will continue to be faithful. The reminders of his faithfulness help us to keep hope alive.
Never give up hoping.
Sometimes, it might seem like you are beyond hope. The Bible is full of those people. Sarah was far too old to have a child, but she did. David thought he was going to be killed by Saul and never become king, but he did. The disciples thought their journey with Jesus was over when he died, but the exact opposite was true.
There is always room for hope, even in the most hopeless of situations. We serve a God who provided food from the sky for the Israelites and multiplied a little boy’s lunch so that it fed a crowd. God will provide for us, even if we don’t know how and we currently find ourselves unemployed or looking at a failing business. We serve a God who made barren women mothers and creates his family out of a bunch of misfits. There is always hope that your future spouse is out there or that God will work a miracle for you to be a parent. We serve a God who appeared to a man who was killing Christians and overnight turned him into a Christ follower and an apostle. There is always hope that God can and God will intervene in the life of the one you love.
There is always hope. It might not look the way we think it should, but God is always at work, so there is always a reason to hope.
Share your hope with others.
We were never meant to keep this message of hope to ourselves. We were always meant to share it with the world. Sometimes sharing our hope just looks like hoping ourselves and letting others know what we are hoping for. Other times it might mean offering words of hope and encouragement to a discouraged coworker, friend or family member.
However you can, in whatever ways God gives you, use your life to offer hope to those around you. Especially in these trying times, hope is desperately needed. Don’t be afraid to share it.
Photo by Pablo Heimplatz on Unsplash