Hope is one of the foundational elements of our Christian faith. It's found in favorite verses and designer font frames hanging in kitchens. These verses have warmed and encouraged our hearts like, "these three remain: faith, hope, and love" from 1 Corinthians 13:13. We have heard sermons about hope and discussed it in our small groups.
I can't help but wonder if we treat hope as a feeling. Do we evaluate if we have hope and are thus optimistic or lacking hope and therefore in despair? Is there another solution to our need of hope? What if hope is like faith?
Currently God's favorite baseball team, the Seattle Mariners, are on a hot winning streak. When we lived up in Seattle our family went to a few Mariner games and even more Rainer games. The Tacoma Rainers are the minor league team for the Seattle Mariners. We loved the smaller ballpark and family friendly games. We enjoyed watching players who were hopeful of being called up to the Majors. Occasionally, a player would get put down on to the Rainers. Recently, one of our players got a concussion and the club had him practice by playing a few games with the Rainers before jumping back into the MLB.
Hebrews 13 challenges us "faith is being sure of what we hope for". What if hope is just the practice game for hope. Hope is where our faith begins as we existentially hope for the supernatural. Then faith challenges us to believe in these hopes and personalize them to our life.
So let us be bold in our hope! Let us dream big and hope for things we couldn't imagine having faith for. Let's not treat hope like a feeling or a mood. If we don't have hope, we don't need to accept our disposition. We can be challenged to exercise our hope!