Hope

Do not fret because of the wicked;
If you trust in the Lord and do good,
then you will live in the land and be secure.
Commit your life to the Lord,
trust in him and he will act.
Calm your anger and forget your rage;
do not fret, it only leads to evil.
For those who do evil shall perish;
the patient shall inherit the land.
Surrender to God, and he will do everything for you.
Psalm 37

Hope is a looking forward to what GOD will do. Among other things, Hope makes you feel good – you don’t have to do it all; you can trust in God. I saw some of God’s great promises to me in the Psalm 37 this morning. It led me to write this.

I went to a conference about Hope this past weekend. Lots of scriptural passages were quoted by the various speakers, but not my favorite, Matt 6:25. It’s the passage which gives me the most Hope. It says to not be anxious, but trust in God’s promises. He can do anything. Any Thing. Have Hope. With all that is happening in the world today however, all the bad things happening, it is easy to have Hope flip over into despair. How do I hang on? How do I hold on to Hope for the future, when things are so bad today that I can’t think about anything else? What value is Hope in the future, when I need help now?

Peace! Peace be to you! That’s the first help you need. Peace. Do not be anxious. If you don’t have a level of peace in your life, you cannot think straight, you cannot act straight, you cannot do what is right, what is best. All you can do is worry. Having Hope gives you that peace, peace about the future. And the future isn’t just some far, far off time, the future is 10 minutes from now. And even then, “he will do everything for you”. He promised.

But the government is going under, the Church isn’t doing anything, and my spouse – Ugh!, and I can’t even THINK about my kids. Peace?? Yes, Peace. Now.

Frank Sheed said it: “To will and intellect, elevated by grace, comes the virtue of Hope: believing that God – known by Faith and loved by Charity – is the goal of our life, realizing that the goal is difficult, but confident that by God’s grace we can reach it.” (The Actions of the Holy Spirit, pp 105-106)

Hope and Peace can be achieved through our will and our intellect, elevated by grace. The starting point for all this is our intellect: to have any degree of Hope in God’s promises, we have to know them and understand them.

I used to be pretty strong in my faith as a youth, but perhaps I was just content with my faith. I think I gradually fell away from that contentment and my faith because I never knew I was supposed to grow in holiness, and I stopped growing in my faith, and holiness, early in my life. I didn’t know that I didn’t know it all. I didn’t know that I was supposed to learn more. I didn’t know that there was more to learn! I didn’t know that I would NEVER know it all. I was a branch, but I thought of myself as the vine, so much more important than I really was.

How do we grow in knowledge – and understanding – of God’s promises? We grow by continuing to read about his promises, reading and meditating on what he said in scripture, reading what others have written – others more wise and holy than ourselves. Through that knowledge we will grow in trust. We don’t have to know everything. We never will this side of heaven, but we need to constantly know and understand more. We will never know all Truth, but if we don’t constantly know more, we will grow stagnant, and bored with our knowledge. It’s happened to all of us before. Sometimes our spouse has told us so (smile); sometimes God hasn’t. But by our lack of Peace, we know when something is wrong.

A marriage in which the courtship stops with the vows, in which the growing in knowledge and love of the spouse stops on the wedding day, is a doomed marriage. Likewise, if our faith stops growing, our trust stops growing, and then our Hope will stop growing. Keep your marriage growing; keep your faith growing: keep learning! Then apply that learning and WILL to have Hope, hope in your spouse’s promises, hope in God’s promises. He will supply you the grace, you just have to do your part.

Focus your will and your intellect. NEVER stop learning and pondering the words and promises of our Lord, my friends. There is so much more to know and love about God, to give us eternal Hope in all his promises for us. To give us a wonderful Peace – now, and forever.

Do not be anxious.