A Perfect Brightness of HOPE

The scriptures are replete with references to HOPE.


PSALMS 71:14 But I will hope continually, and will yet praise thee more and more.

ROMANS 8:24 For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?

LAMENTATIONS 3:26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.

MORONI 7:42 Wherefore, if a man have faith he must needs have hope; for without faith there cannot be any hope.

I've been thinking about hope a lot.
I don't trust hope.
Too many times hope leads to heartache and disappointment.

In an eternal sense hope may be a dandy thing, connected with faith, trusting in the promises of God. But in the temporal world Hope is a trickster, buoying up my spirits with a giddy expectation that everything will turn out well when many times it does not. All too often, hope leaves me stranded.

So, at times, I try to disengage myself from hope. I tell myself it is not helpful to have any great attachment to one outcome or another. What I want, long for, hope for, will not have any bearing on the outcome. Events and circumstances are going to play out however they will regardless of my puny desires and motives, no matter how passionate they may be. I might as well just accept what comes. Hope is just my vain way of fooling myself into believing I know what the good/best/right outcome would be when the truth of the matter is that I only see such a small fraction of the big picture how can I possible know what would be for the best?

HOWEVER - the flip side of all this is that I want to hope. Even when things turn out badly in the end, the way I experience the process when I am in a state of hope primes me for noticing positive possibilities along the way rather than forfeiting into a sense of inevitability. When I am HOPING I am alert and looking for every toe hold of opportunity to influence things. When I lose hope I go despondent and begin to believe nothing I say or do will matter. That spirals into alienation and a dark sense of futility. Not a place I want to be.

Right now there are several key things I am hoping for.

I am hoping my oldest son will graduate
I am hoping our house sells
I am hoping I get the job I just interviewed for
I am hoping a variety of other things that I prefer not to mention here...

I have no idea how any of these things will ultimately turn out. But I do hope.

And with that hope comes much heartache and disappointment.
It's a package deal. I'll take each sorrow as it comes and view it as far preferable to the hollow sense of apathetic hopelessness that is the alternative.

I'm rambling, I know. But this is an issue that's been rattling around in my mind a lot of late. CAUTION says "Don't get your hopes up". My heart says "Too late, my hope is soaring. Perhaps I'll crash. But in the mean time, I'm going to have a fabulous ride. Just name me Icarus."