Hard Hope
Major Allan Bateman reflects on hope, transformation and surfing.
Welcome to that season of the year when the winter is past and we are facing forward to summer. New possibilities are on the horizon, and in the near future is the blank page that a fresh new year offers.
The pattern of renewal and second chances is hardwired into the human experience. Creation itself insists, even shouts, with the rising of the sun each morning, that another chance has come, another gift is given.
I want to reflect on hope as it relates to transformation. Becoming people of hope is a sign of transformation as well as being part of the transformation God intends for us. But are we aware of the power of hope? Have you considered how countercultural it can be to be a person of sure and certain hope these days?
Hope seems to be a ‘soft’ thing, but I wonder how hope got that reputation. A hope that can hold us facing forward with expectation in the face of some adversity—isn’t that a hard, Hebrews 11:1 sort of hope? ‘Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.’
Changed by hope
I believe God calls us to be a people who are transformed by the hope we receive—a tangible hope. Saul was changed by hope. Having persecuted so many for following Christ, he became Paul after his encounter on the Damascus road and the key to so many after him to encounter the risen Christ. Our Salvation Army story the world over is crowded with characters forever changed for good when they came to know the love of God. Tangible hope making tangible change.
Our Salvation Army story the world over is crowded with characters forever changed for good when they came to know the love of God.
The kind of hope that we receive when we’re redefined as loved by God has the power to turn how we see ourselves and others on its head. Before we had relationship with God, we were painfully aware of what separates us from Him. When we learn that God wants to relate to us as His own children, that is what now defines us rather than our shortcomings. That’s the power and promise of hard hope.
The writer of Lamentations, who himself apparently held a great hope even in a time of great sadness (clue: the book is called Lamentations), testified and proclaimed, ‘The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness’. (Lam 3:22–23). This kind of hard hope might be infectious.
A new wave
Let’s put some skin on this; I’m no lover of gyms, but people tell me that repeated exercise of certain muscles and muscle groups eventually shows. I have had to learn to use the muscle of hope in my own faith journey and I have learned that hope itself brings transformation.
I owe John Ortberg—a pastor and writer about spiritual growth and encounter—a debt of gratitude for his word-picture of the Christian life.
It has become part of the hard hope I hold on to. Ortberg says living the life of a follower of Christ is a lot like surfing; we’re up on the board, but then we fall and we’re in the water. We get that part of the analogy easily. But too easily we miss the next bit which is truly transformational; the grace is that God sends another wave.
I’m no surfer, but I’m familiar with the pattern of falling in the water and the temptation to focus on failure. It came as a revelation to me that every time I fail, I’m not drowning, nor am I back at the beginning or on the beach all over again. The fresh wave is sent along and the God-sent wave itself is my invitation to get up on the board and try again. I can get back on board right where I fell off and go again. In his analogy, Ortberg says that the goal of Christian life, of discipleship, is to figuratively spend less and less time in the water.
I find this to be a grace-and-truth-filled picture of how God actually deals with me, offering me daily and persistent hard hope right in the moment even when I’m failing. It’s powerful enough hope to answer the accusations of failure, shame or feelings of disabling inadequacy.
…every time I fail, I’m not drowning, nor am I back at the beginning or on the beach all over again.
Holding hope for others
The idea of spending less and less time in the water encourages me that I can, over time, more and more consistently be a faithful image-bearer of Christ and for Him. That’s the goal, right?
The knowledge that God will faithfully gift me another opportunity to go it again, as surely as another wave is coming, reminds me that His inclination is never to judge or condemn me, but gift me fresh grace. His pattern of doing that with me enables me to express that same patient resilient care for others—to hold hope for them even when they don’t claim it yet.
I’m encouraged in this process that He works to bring His transformative work in me to fulfilment or to completion; ‘Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.’—Philippians 1:6.
