Finding Our Way: Willingness to Hope

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life" Proverbs 13:12

One sure way to get to know someone’s heart is to ask about what it is that they hope for. The things we deeply desire find root in the center of our hearts and souls and therefore the things we desire can hold a lot of power in our lives. The problem is, however, that hoping for something makes us increasingly vulnerable to disappointment and pain; pain that reaches to the core of our being. To hope is to be vulnerable. However, to hope is also to be courageous. One sign of a healthy person is someone who is willing to have hopes and dreams. When disappointments come or when dreams are ripped away it becomes quite tempting to hope for nothing and keep our expectations low. Sure, this is a safe way to live but it is far from courageous. Instead of some psycho-education on the topic, I’ve decided to share the following, creatively written from the imagined perspective of our Heavenly Father, in hopes that you might be both challenged and encouraged to hope.


“Beloved,

Why are you so afraid? Why do you keep looking back to the pain and disappointment? Why are you so afraid to hope? I promise you healing for the past but also newness for your future. Imagine that a farmer had a bountiful crop almost ready to be harvested but a swarm of locusts came and destroyed his crop and stole his harvest; he would be devastated. All that work, all that time, would be for nothing. It’s wasted. The following year he planted a crop and a drought came. The crop withered and died, and the soil was dry and cracked. The farmer had to endure the drought, famine and wasteland, not knowing when it would end. But now the rain comes, the sun shines, and the land is ready for a new crop. The farmer has a storehouse full of seeds. Should he continue to focus on that which was lost? Should he withhold planting seeds for fear that once again his crops might be destroyed? That would be foolish! It would be worse to never plant the seeds than to plant them in hope, even if they might be destroyed. If the man refuses to plant the new seed he risks nothing but he also gains nothing. He is no longer at risk of being devastated by the locust, but instead he devastates himself. If the farmer chooses to sow the seed, there is risk that it may once again be destroyed; however, there is hope of a plentiful harvest. There is no guarantee for this farmer, if he chooses to act he must act in hope, but you see, beloved, more important than the harvest of a crop is the harvest of a man’s heart. Let your heart not be hard, let it not be hopeless. I know the devastation and the pain you have endured, but be courageous. Trust that I am with you; I am for you, and let the evidence of your faith in me be hope. Hope that is followed by action; hope that when fulfilled with be like a tree of life.”

All My Love,  
Your Heavenly Father”


 ^"3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, 

knowing that suffering produces endurance,  

⁴ and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 

⁵ and 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 5:3-5

Submitted by: Sarah E. White, MS