Keep Choosing Hope

Season 1. Episode 19.

“I had allowed my desire to become my hope. I think we often confuse the two when, in reality, they are very different. Desire is what a person wants. But a desire’s strength is inconsistent; it rises and falls with human emotion. Biblical hope is the confident trust that God will fulfill His promises. Biblical hope is steeped in grace. The strength of biblical hope rests on the faithfulness of God Himself. Through His grace, we are blessed with miracles whether we deserve them or not. Doesn’t that just give you chills in the best way? None of us are owed a thing by God, but He pours His grace out to us anyway, blessing richly and fully. How lucky are we?

Still, despite knowing all of that, we continually place our hope in all the wrong things. Even the best of things—doctors, jobs, relationships, our kids, love—aren’t God. And when we place our hope in temporary things that can never completely or indefinitely satisfy, we will always be disappointed.

The sad part of this story is that I knew better. I knew where my hope should be. I knew that hoping in the wrong places led to heartbreak. But I got lazy. And I got busy. I allowed the busyness of raising my boys, being a coach’s wife, and running a business to be an excuse not to be faithful in my walk with the Lord. My quiet times rarely happened, but I had all the excuses, of course. And when I did spend time with God, those times were filled with so much distraction. Once again, I was living on borrowed faith. I was using the best doctor at the best clinic, and our embryo had a good quality score. Check, check, check. I checked the boxes off in my head and mapped out the plan for how it all would go. My plan. Not His plan. I wanted to have a third baby around the time when the boys would turn three. I liked that age gap. I wanted to deliver in early summer, so Blake would be home more to help me. We made all these decisions around what worked best for us without even asking God what He wanted for our story. We took back the reins and were writing the story of how we wanted it to go. Our hope was not in Jesus. Our misplaced hope was staked firmly in our plan.

So afterward, then the transfer failed and I wrestled over my numb heart, I began to pray and cry out to God. Why this same heartbreak again? I’ll never forget the moment when I stared at my miracle twins, and I felt this truth so clearly placed on my heart. I couldn’t stop thinking, They were not my plan. Over and over that phrase went through my head. My plan was to have our first baby seven years ago. My plan was not IVF. My plan was to get pregnant the first time we tried. They were not my plan. They were His plan. Every part of my boys’ lives was not my plan. I never wanted twins. I didn’t want to give birth in August as Blake and my mom started back to school. God’s plan was hard. But as I sat there on that couch snuggled up to the cutest miracles I’ve ever seen, none of that hard stuff felt heavy anymore. Why? Because God got me through it all. As I hugged my babies and tears fell down my face, the fog lifted and took the numbness with it.

In that quiet and sweet, still moment, God reminded me in the most gentle way that these tiny little faces I get to look at every single day were never part of my plan. But they were always part of His plan. If I had to do it all again, I’d choose His plan every time. How had I forgotten this? I beat myself up over this for a while. But no matter how long you’ve been walking with God, you can get distracted and forget the lessons you worked so hard to learn. When you aren’t faithful in the little things, your heart becomes more susceptible to the lies, and you start placing your hope in things that will never satisfy. I cannot place my hope in my plans. I must seek Him, walk with Him, trust Him, and allow Him to direct my path. I have to place my hopes in the One who never disappoints and is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Luckily, God’s grace has us covered. He will patiently, kindly, and gently teach us the same lessons over and over again until they are written on our hearts.

Hope is a choice. It is both a noun and a verb. It’s something you can have, but also something you can do. To me the more important of the two is always in the doing. If we have hope, but aren’t actively hoping, then we are missing a crucial component. The hoping is God’s grace in action in our life. It’s that confident trust we place in Him to bless us regardless of the circumstances, the difficulties, or the downright impossibilities.

Have you ever heard the phrase “Don’t get your hopes up?” That phrase is an insurance policy based in fear, a reminder to ourselves to set our expectations low so that failure won’t hurt so badly. I hate the lack of grace in that expression. If our hopes are in Jesus, they can never be too high. I want to choose hope over fear. Fear that I won’t get the thing I desire. Fear that this season will never end. Fear that I am going to fail. Fear of what others may think about me. Instead of allowing those fears to dictate our steps, let’s choose hope.

Choosing hope gives us something to look forward to. It strengthens our hearts when we stand and believe that God is able. Choosing hope is a way we actively live out our faith. Choosing hope means that we believe God’s promises are true, that we believe His plan for our lives is good. Choosing hope means that we believe God will create beauty from ashes and purpose from the pain in our lives. Choosing hope means believing that even if God’s answer is no, we will be okay. Hope allows you to believe that God will work all things for our good and His purpose. It’s so much more than just wishful thinking. Hope has the power to shift your attitude in the middle of sadness because hope tells you that, in Jesus, brighter days are ahead. He promises us in Psalm 30:5 that “weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.”

Martin Luther King Jr. said, “We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope.” No matter how many times you face sadness or how dark your circumstances feel, I encourage you to keep choosing hope. Start by getting up each day and trusting that today will be better than yesterday. Choose hope day by day, hour by hour, and sometimes minute by minute. I encourage you to keep practicing, keep choosing hope, give yourself grace when you stumble, and day by day your faith, trust, and hope will grow strong and bold.”

- Chapter 8 called The Grace of Hope

Links:

Ad: Give Grace book