Undivided Hope

We hope in love.

We hope in each other.

We hope in medicine, in jobs, in life.

Yet divided hope is worthless. Divided hope holds no strength.

Divided hope brings stress, restlessness, fear.

When we look at all these different things in our lives and place significance on the hope we placed within them, weakness is fueled.

But how can I say this when hope has the ability to set expectations in our life, to move us along in the most trying times? How can I say that hope can weaken the soul?

It is difficult for me to explain the pain my family has dealt in the past year and a half. My Papaw was diagnosed with colon cancer in November 2012. He began chemo in December and has gone through some laborious, painful days. As the chemo fills his body, his wife's, his children's, his friends and family members hearts begin to hope... an exhausted hope it has become. Hoping that this treatment, or the next one will kill the cancer that has burdened his body. But our hope only becomes exhausted when we begin to hope in the doctors, in the medicines, in the surgeries.

Our hope, exasperated by being thinned out into many little hope jars, becomes almost more burdening and troublesome than if we didn't hope at all.

But what I realized was that if I were to stop hoping in the medicine, stop hoping in the new doctor, the new treatment, the new surgery, the new hospital or clinic... if I were to repossess the hope I thought I found in all of the worldly aspects of his chemo and place ALL my hope in the LORD, my hope would gain strength. It would be placed in him. I will no longer despair, or have a broken heart. (Psalm 43:5) I will find joy in my hope because my hope is placed in an everlasting light. My hope is found in a strength that nothing on this earth can provide. Confidence will grow (Ps. 71:5), our strength renewed, our joy found. Faith will stand fast when hope is placed in the creator of all things and in this I can be confident. I can be confident that God will work out all things for his Glory, and his alone. 

Where you place hope is crucial. Sometimes taking a step back and looking out onto the horizon of your life, scanning, identifying, and revealing your hope jars and reclaiming them for a one true hope is all we need.