Hope

Hope ….maketh not ashamed, for the love of God is shed abroad in our heart. Patience found itself through tribulation and then through that patience came experience, and experience birthed hope? Of course, we know the Bible. Hope maketh not ashamed. I love that end product, I wonder about the other stuff.

Hope means nothing to us unless contrasted in hopelessness. Shame surfaces in the midst of unrelenting dires of living hell, bombarding mankind from externalities unseen. Our existence and it’s shame abide synonymous. Hope, however, makes us not ashamed. Hope changes a root. Hope deadens a curse, revokes a penalty, releases a fear. That damned shame battles to retain its ground, nevertheless,.

Tribulation worketh? How strange a remedy; “tribulation” —not shame release yet, but step 1 builds patience? Couldn’t God think of another way? I must admit that tribulation takes my eyes off my shame. Is there a hint here? Forthrightly, when the oft “thlipsis” of narrow straits squeezes the through-way, I jump unashamedly into expressing my displeasure. In fact, I straightly ignore my shame, expose it, and proceed, not really caring who thinks what, now. Were a third way there.

The good thing about abrasive events is that they remove my inhibitions and embolden my inner self. This freedom, however, must find some constraining re-direction. Let’s direct the energy, as weird as that force is, and keep, at the same time, our distance from shame. How is this giving me patience? Well, patience enables me to abide beneath my situations and hell. It removes me from the front lines of battle into the foxhole of shelter. The bombs can’t get at me here.

So, to reiterate, fire lights up under the shame-exposed human’s foot and sets him in motion, toward a continuous hiding, bomb shelter style, and this is what we have? Yea and Amen. Like the prodigal in his self-imposed pigpen, we “come to ourselves” enough to run and hide.

Well, what next? Experience, sweet experience, we approach your back door. The experiment, the “dokimazo”, the proving, the God-sent test tube, the regulated conditions unfurl themselves. It is meant for our approval rating. This means of course, God’s approval, but also effects our approval of ourselves. It trains and conditions.

Again, the updated summary goes: crap flies, some hits my fan, I awaken, I duck into the bomb shelter —again and again. Its a drill and I’m getting darn good at it. Here goes my story:

Well, well what have we here? A box of Corn-Flakes and bottled water. But listen to this; last time down in the shelter I brought fig-newtons and Coffee and a pot to make it. I am seeing the need to outfit my concrete room for more comfort. After all, I am so often here. I am moving my microwave there and toaster, my Bible and study books. I still need plants and a fish-bowl. It’s my home away from home.

There are many things I have grown to like about my covered edifice. The most important; I’m safe there. The flying projectiles explode at the walls. They can’t get through to me. I’m relaxing more now. I discovered a secret back entrance to the place. This is where my friend enters and shares time with me —his name, of course, Jesus.

He assures me that though we are holed up here for now, we are going out that back door some day and it will be into Beulah land. In that place no one ever dies, no one ever suffers, and no one ever cries. When we go there we will never go back to the flying missiles. No argument there!

This new friend, Jesus, kind and caring, identifying with my needy life, but assuring me and encouraging, creates an expectation. He is “Christ in me, the hope of glory.” He tells me that when He appears in glory, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. I am liberated unto a future, I am ecstatic about what my life is to become.

Finally, love pours out in my heart. This love-glue convinces hope. It exists sure, an anchor for the soul. God’s kind of love releases me from all that is flaky and not guaranteed because it includes His self-sacrificing commitment, suffering dedication, and never-forsaking permanence. Hope would surely fade with the least bit of doubt. He exclaims “I am the Lord God, I change not,” and then, “whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever.” Ecclesiastes 3:14. 

He is all-powerful, all-knowing. He is present everywhere. Lastly, and most specially endearing, He is with me, even until the end of the world.