Hope (from a World Update article)

A short time ago I received an email asking me to contribute a short article to the World Update for Hope International Missions. They said the theme was hope. I agreed to do it and normally would have been at a bit of a loss, but I had just been reading Where Is God When It Hurts by Philip Yancey and the topic was on my mind. I had also just read one of RZIM's daily readings on the subject of hope, written by Stuart McAllister. So, here is the article, or almost the same article.

The concept of hope is nothing new to anyone. In the world it is a currency heavily damaged by ‘inflation.’ Like a country printing limitless quantities of paper currency with nothing to back it. The word “hope” is thrown around as political promises, song lyrics and even vague church rhetoric with no transcendent basis. One political party uses it as a second-rate stump speech and the other as mockery.

I typed the subject #hope into my twitter search bar to get a little feel for what the internet is saying about this word. The results were varied, at times ludicrous.
@Derekitsbieber #Its worth livin if @Justinbeiber my inspiration my everything is not following me: (#Its my 780 tweet to him :) #Hope he follow me now:)

At times humorous
@ramyakannan It is my dream that, one day, I will wake up to mail without spam. #hope

At times ignorant
@inna_yy I want to be fluent with my speak english \(•Δ•)/ #hope it

At times heartbreaking
@hibaFatimaa How can parents bear seeing their children walk through the door every morning, hoping they’d come back home safe? #Pakistan #hope

At times heartbreakingly hopeful
@louiegiglio Remembering my precious mom, Martha Jeane Giglio, a legend of faith and faithfulness. I love you! #Tearsmixedwith hope

John Moe once said; “Sometimes I think the web is designed to be a massive documentation of stupid people getting angry about stupid stuff.” There is a lot of “talk” that goes into the web, but at the same time something is coming through, as you read down through these tweets you get a feeling for the longing that is there. Clearly I do not take my cues from the internet, but I began to wonder; what is hope? If I tell someone on the street that I can bring them hope, what am I saying?

What is this hope? If I say I hope for this or I hope for that, am I wishing or am I making a valued judgment based on concrete evidence of events to come? Stuart McAllister of RZIM put it this way;

…hope as it is defined in the Christian worldview is more robust than a wish, more fixed and sure than a vague longing. It carries the idea of delayed but guaranteed fulfillment. It is the kind of assurance that something set in motion will, in due time, come to fruition. The farmer sows in hope that the seed, though buried, will produce a sure crop. Similarly, the Scriptures ground the concept of hope in the nature of who God is, what God has done, what God has promised.


So if we are taking hope to the world, as our name suggests, what exactly are we delivering? May I submit to you the only surety, the only real hope any of us have in this life, Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Take away Christ’s death on the cross and his redemptive work and we have nothing. There is no amount of compassion or social justice, fundraising or humanitarian aid that will provide hope. Gather all the secular humanitarian aid work and place it next to one drop of the blood of Jesus and it pales in comparison. We take hope to the world because we take Christ with us.