Even rats need hope.
In 1957, at Johns Hopkins, Curt P. Richter experimented with drowning rats. He put rats in a dish of water, with sides too high for climbing, and water too deep for standing. All the rats could do was swim. After a few minutes, the rats would stop swimming and drown. But if Richter removed a rat from the dish when it stopped swimming (but before it actually drowned), and later subjected it to the same experiment, he found that the rat could swim for more than 24 hours. The rats that drowned after a few minutes could swim for much longer. They simply gave up because they saw no hope.
People need hope, too, for the same reason that rats do. Even the best lives have hard times, and the worst lives can be almost unbearably painful. Hope keeps us going when times are hard.
Most things are easier to find when we know what to look for. Before we try to find hope, we need to know what it is.
We use the word "hope" in two different ways. The first way means wishing for something that is positive, but which we have no particular grounds for expecting, as in, "I hope I win the lottery" or "I hope I get a date with him or her." It is just wishful thinking, and it cannot help us very much.
The kind of hope we are interested in is much stronger. It is something we can trust or rely on. Perhaps Webster's 1828 dictionary put it best: "The highest degree of well-founded expectation of good." This is hope that works in the real world, not just in wishful dreams.
Many of us hope for an easy and pleasant life - and, of course, a long one. Hoping for this, we put our hope in other things that we think will give us such a life. (What we hope for is the thing that we expect that will be good. We place our hope in mechanisms that we expect will bring us what we hope for.)
We often place our hope in people. We hope in those who love us - in parents or children or spouse or that special someone we'll find some day. And sometimes we hope in politicians, hoping that getting the right person into the right office will make things better.
Sometimes we place our hope in things. We hope that life will be better when we have our dream house... or car... or that boat...
Then we have to pay for the things, and so we place our hope in money, or a job, or a promotion. And then when the job becomes too difficult or confining, we hope in retirement (or a new job).
Some people place their hope in an experience. Personally, I often put my hope in a vacation, but others hope in sex, drugs, alcohol, or entertainment.
Most of all, we place our hope in ourselves - certainly I do. I hope in my talents and skills. I hope in my efforts. I place my hope in myself that by strength, or effort, or persistence, or cunning, I can make it all work out.
But all of these are false hopes. That is, our expectation of these things causing good in our lives are not well-founded. Our expectations don't match reality.
First of all, there is not the slightest hope of an easy life. In John 16:33, Jesus said, "These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation..." Life is not like we wish, and it never will be. We have Jesus' word on that.
Realistically, there is little basis for placing our hope in people. By definition, people are human, with all that the term implies. While they are capable of amazing kindness, love, and self-sacrifice, the are also inconsistent, often selfish or uncaring, and sometimes deliberately malicious. People have hurt us and let us down in the past, and they will continue to do so in the future.
Living in a nice house is more pleasant than living in a dump. But even the nicest house is not yet a home. Only people can make it that.
Driving a nice car is more enjoyable than driving a pile of junk. But I recently totaled my car. I learned that a nice car can become a pile of junk in about two seconds.
I'm not sure that it's nice to own a boat. A co-worker once told his wife, "The next time I say that I want to own a boat, take me out on the lawn and spray me with a hose while I tear up $20 bills."
Having money in the bank is nicer than being broke. But in I Timothy 6:17, Paul said, "Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches..." Money is Uncertain. It is simply too fragile to serve as a basis for real hope. All money is good for is buying things. If the things cannot give us genuine hope, then money itself cannot either.
Experiences often don't live up to our expectations. (Even more often, they don't live up to their advertising.) For example, I really like Lake Powell. The combination of the lake and the red rock cliffs makes for one of the most striking landscapes on earth. But once I went there, and I was absolutely miserable for most of the trip. I was in a wonderful place, but being there wasn't enough to make my life any better. No place has the power to do that. Lake Powell wasn't enough to even make me happy.
Most of all, there is no basis for placing my hope in me. I can't make everything work out; too much is beyond my control. Even what I can control, I too often mess up due to selfishness, incompetence, or bad choices. I can try to do better, and that helps some, but I am simply not up to the job of "making it all work out".
And that's not even the biggest problem with placing my hope in myself. The biggest problem is that I will die. If my hope is in myself, and I die, my hope dies too. Recently, I passed a graveyard, and I looked at the sea of headstones. I was struck by how many people's hopes are buried with their bones.
As places to put our hope, these things are no better than mirages. What happens when we hope in them? Proverbs 13:12 says, "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but desire fulfilled is a tree of life." When we hope in futile things, our hearts become sick. (The usual pattern is first anger, and then depression.)
In John 8:31, 32, Jesus said that if we abide in His word, we will know the truth, and the truth will set us free. Though Jesus didn't state it, the reverse is also true: lies will enslave us. When we pursue false hopes, we become slaves to our illusions.
Finally, Psalm 16:2 says, "I said to the Lord, 'Thou art my Lord; I have no good besides Thee.'" Then verse 4 says, "The sorrows of those who have bartered for another god will be multiplied." Why will their sorrows be multiplied? Because they turn away from what can truly do them good - their real hope - and turn to things that cannot help them at all. As a result, they miss the good that could have been theirs. When we chase after false hopes, we miss out on the good that real hope could bring us.
After reading this far, you may be wondering: does real hope exist at all? Yes, there is real hope, hope that can truly do us good, that does not merely lead to depression. We see this in Proverbs 10:28. "The hope of the righteous is gladness, but the expectation of the wicked perishes." There is hope that leads to gladness rather than despair. Note the restriction, though - it is the hope of the righteous. The wicked are promised that their hope will fail. This is not just because the righteous are righteous and the wicked are wicked. The righteous and wicked hope for different things.
What is the hope of the righteous? We find a hint in II Corinthians 4:18: "... while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." Real hope must be eternal (otherwise it will eventually die). Real hope must therefore be in unseen (that is, spiritual) things.
But the Bible does more than just hint. I Peter 1:21 explicitly states that the Christian's hope is in God Himself: "... [you] who through Him are believers in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God."
I Timothy 1:1 calls Jesus Christ "our hope". Romans 15:12 says, "And again Isaiah says, 'There shall come the root of Jesse, and He who arises to rule over the Gentiles, in Him shall the Gentiles hope.'" In these verses, hope is in the person of Jesus Christ.
Titus 2:13 says that our "blessed hope" is the return of Jesus Christ. I Peter 1:13 adds a bit of detail: "... fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ."
What grace will be brought to us at His coming? That is, what are we to fix our hope on? On our transformation into His likeness. I John 3:2b says, "We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is." (See also I Corinthians 15:50-53 and I Thessalonians 4:15-17).
I am flawed. No, that's too weak. Morally, emotionally, and relationally, I am a mess. I am such a mess that I cannot fix myself. Thankfully, I don't have to. God is in the process of fixing me now, and He will one day finish the job. Even though I cannot put my hope in myself, there is hope for me because of Christ.
Similarly,
What is this "redemption of our body" that we hope for? Once again, scripture explains scripture:
We can have also realistic, confident hope of an eternal reward. As Paul said,
However, this is not just "hope deferred" until eternity. We get a taste of it in the present.
Immediately after II Corinthians 5:1-4 (which we quoted above about our hope of bodily resurrection), we read, "Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge" (II Corinthians 5:5). The Greek word translated "pledge" can also mean "down payment" or "earnest money". A closely related word is used in modern Greek to mean an engagement ring. Paul, then, is telling us that, while we hope in God's promise of our resurrection, we have already received the first payment on our promised hope, in the form of the Holy Spirit, given to us when we placed our faith in Christ. This first payment is also the guarantee that the rest will come without fail.
There is even some hope for this life. In II Corinthians 1:8-10, Paul said,
Paul hoped in God for physical deliverance. He had to hope in God because there clearly was no realistic basis for hope anywhere else. There are no circumstances that God cannot deliver us from, no matter how hopeless they are in human terms. And if we can still hope in God when death threatens us, surely we can also in the lesser (but still difficult) circumstances of life!
But hoping for physical deliverance is uncertain, even if this hope is in God, because God in His sovereignty sometimes chooses not to rescue His children. For example, in Acts 12:1-11, Peter and James were arrested. Peter was miraculously delivered, but James was executed. (For another example, not involving death, see II Corinthians 12:7-10.)
But even when God doesn't rescue us, His presence still goes with us. God's presence can transform our circumstances - even the circumstances of our death - into glory. When we go through death, we do so with the presence of the Spirit of the One who has also gone through death, and who triumphed through death and over death. It is through death that we move on to receive our true hope. Does it matter so much, then, that our hope of deliverance from death is uncertain?
Where is your hope? Is it in God, in heaven, in eternity? Or is it in things that will ultimately fail you?
In your idle moments, what do you daydream about? This can be a fairly good indicator of what you actually hope for. In my case, it tells me that I mostly hope for very weak things - things that are of no eternal value, and that are worth little even here and now.
Determining what we are placing our hope in to bring us what we hope for is a little harder. But once we know what we hope for, we can usually discover what we hope in by observing our own behavior. What do we desperately chase after, trying to make it bring us what we dream of?
Hebrews 7:19 points us to a method for determining whether a hope is real or false. "... there is the bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God." If a hope does not draw us nearer to God, it is almost certainly a false hope.
Let us note, however, that this is not at all the intended meaning of the verse. If you read starting in verse 11, the passage is saying that there was no hope of drawing near to God through the law, but we can do so through Christ. Christ is therefore "a better hope" than the law. But real hope will draw us nearer to God, even though that isn't the point of this passage. (Since we deeply desire our own good, and we hope for what we think will bring us good, we almost automatically draw near to whatever we hope for.) Though Hebrews 7:19 doesn't teach this, it does illustrate it.
It is not difficult to show the futility of the things that people usually look to for hope. Why is the hope the Bible describes any better?
First, biblical hope is better because it has the character of God as a foundation.
In the book of Lamentations, we read Jeremiah's mourning over the fall of Jerusalem. His city, government, and nation were destroyed. The economy was destroyed. The military was destroyed. Dead bodies lay everywhere. And Jeremiah mourned.
But almost exactly in the center of Lamentations, we read, "This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness" (Lamentations 3:21-23). In the midst of the destruction of every earthly hope, Jeremiah found real hope, because he remembered God's character. Specifically, he remembered God's love and His faithfulness.
In Hebrews 10:23, we read, "Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful." Our hope is solid because it rests on the bedrock of God's faithfulness.
I Thessalonians 5:23, 24 is similar: "Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass." Verse 23 describes what we hope for; verse 24 says that the hope is certain, because God is faithful.
In Titus 1:2, Paul gives us a slightly different angle on this. "... in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago..." Our hope is certain because God promised it, and God cannot lie. He does what He says He will do.
Let us turn from God's faithfulness to His love. In Psalm 130:7 we read, "O Israel, hope in the Lord; for with the Lord there is lovingkindness, and with Him is abundant redemption." For real hope, we must have a realistic expectation of our good. Real love always seeks to do what is good for the loved one, and so God's love gives us solid grounds to place our hope in Him.
Western culture gives us the very misleading idea that love is primarily a matter of feelings. It is not. Real love is primarily a matter of the will, and expresses itself in action. And this is the next reason why biblical hope is better: because God is active. He does things.
God actively provides for us. As Jeremiah said, "Do any of the worthless idols of the nations bring rain? Do the skies themselves send down showers? No, it is you, O Lord our God. Therefore our hope is in you, for you are the one who does all this" (Jeremiah 14:22, New International Version).
Also, God actively helps us. In Psalm 42:5,11, we read, "Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him for the help of His presence... Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance, and my God." Even in adverse circumstances, God's help gives us solid reason to hope in Him.
What does "the help of my countenance" mean? Well, "countenance" means "face" or "facial expression", specifically as a reflection of the emotions, heart, or soul (see Genesis 4:5,6 for another example). Then "the help of my countenance" means "that which helps my facial expression", or "that which helps me smile again". God both helps with the actual situation ("the help of His presence") and with how I feel about it ("the help of my countenance").
Finally, biblical hope is better because it lasts forever. Eternal things are much more valuable than temporal things, and much better as places to put our hope, precisely because they will last forever and the temporal will not.
As Jesus said in Matthew 6:19-20, "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal..." Biblical hope - permanent, unchangeable, indestructible, secure and certain - is far superior to earthly hope which, in one way or another, always perishes with time.
Ideas have consequences. Beliefs have consequences. Where we place our hope has consequences.
Earlier, we saw that false hope leads to depression, despair, and slavery. What does real hope produce in our lives?
We just quoted where Jesus told us to store up treasure in heaven. In the next verse (Matthew 6:21), He told us what the result would be: "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." When we have real hope, it produces in us a heart set on heaven.
In Colossians 1:4,5, Paul said that hope produces faith in Christ and love for other believers. Hebrews 11:1 goes a step further: "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen". Confidence in our certain hope doesn't just produce faith; it is faith.
Real hope produces real joy - deep, abiding joy, joy that thrives in spite of our circumstances. As Peter said,
Similarly, Psalm 33:21 says, "For our heart rejoices in Him, because we trust in His holy name." (Remember our definition of hope - what we trust or rely on. Trusting in God, then, is the same as hoping in Him. And the result is joy.)
Real hope produces peace in our hearts. Isaiah said, "You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you" (Isaiah 26:3, New International Version). When my hope is in God and in heaven, I have peace, because what hope for will certainly come. My earthly circumstances may be horrible - literally full of horror - and yet the horror has no power to alter real hope in the slightest. Real hope stands forever secure, untouchable by all the evil that mars our lives here.
By "real hope", I do not mean my attitude of hoping in God. Rather, I mean the only real hope there is - God and heaven. This hope does not change. God does not change just because my circumstances do. Heaven still exists even when earth starts to resemble hell.
But while real hope cannot be marred by my circumstances, my attitude of hoping in God can be, and so can my peace. "Him whose mind is steadfast" God keeps in peace. When my mind is on my circumstances, rather than on God, I don't have peace. My personal circumstances are not horrible, but they are not good enough to bring me peace. They never will be. But when my mind is steadfastly trusting - hoping - in God, then God gives me real peace.
Real hope produces praise. As Psalm 71:14 says, "But as for me, I will hope continually, and I will praise Thee yet more and more." We have a wonderful hope, perfect and incorruptible. We could never achieve or earn it, but God gave it to us freely, though at His own great expense. How else can we respond, except with praise and adoration?
Even in matters of this life, we know that God can do all things, including things that are completely beyond our ability. This gives us hope, no matter what our circumstances are. Shouldn't we praise God for this? It is human nature that we praise God for the hope of His help when we are in difficulty, and never think of it when times are good. But He is always worthy of praise for His power to help us, whether we are in bad times or good.
Real hope leads us to avoid sin, living lives of purity. John said, "Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure" (I John 3:2,3; see also II Peter 3:13,14).
Real hope leads us to live our lives for God, rather than for ourselves. In I Corinthians 15:51-57, Paul beautifully describes the hope of the resurrection, and the transformation of those who are alive at Christ's return, saying that death has been swallowed up by victory, thanks to what God has done through Jesus Christ. Then comes verse 58: "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord."
Similarly, in II Corinthians 5:5-9, Paul said, "Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave us the Spirit as a pledge. Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord - for we walk by faith, not by sight - we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. Therefore also we have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him."
Why does real hope lead us to live to please God rather than ourselves? There are at least three reasons. The first is simple gratitude. God gave us everything that really matters, purely at His own expense. Though we cannot repay Him, should we not in response try to do what pleases Him?
The second reason is that we have real hope of an eternal reward for what we do here. As Hebrews 11:24-26 says, "By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God, than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin; considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward" (emphasis added).
The third reason that real hope leads us to live our lives for God rather than self is that it's the only thing that makes sense. When we really understand what our hope is, we see that nothing on earth can hold a candle to it. What else, then, should we live for, if not our hope?
The other side of the same coin is that real hope takes our focus off of material and temporal things. Hebrews 10:34 says, "For you showed sympathy to the prisoners, and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and an abiding one." And Hebrews 13:5 says, "Let your character be free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, 'I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you'". We have nothing significant to lose by living for God, and nothing of any value to gain by living for ourselves.
One night I was walking around downtown Salt Lake City. This is a fairly safe city, but I still sometimes get approached by panhandlers. On this occasion, I felt perfectly willing to give away all the money I had on me, which amounted to five dollars. Why was I so willing? Well, $5 is not all that much money - and I had a check for $1800, though I was not carrying it around.
Our eternal hope is like this. It is much more valuable than everything else we have, and it is securely ours. We can't lose it. We can't even give it away! So we don't need to cling to things that are virtually worthless. Since we have a hope that is both secure and of great value, should we not place our focus there? Why should we devote all our time, effort, and attention to chasing after temporary things of little value?
Real hope produces anticipation of our hope - even longing for it. We see an example of this in Revelation 22:20. When Jesus said, "Yes, I am coming quickly," John responded eagerly: "Come, Lord Jesus."
Do you ever feel like you don't want Christ to return yet, because you have things you want to do first? When we feel this way, it reveals that we are hoping in earthly things - in events and experiences, or in our own ability to accomplish and achieve. There is no real hope in such things, and they are worthless junk in comparison to the reality that waits for us in heaven. Enough of such worthless hopes! Let us turn to hope that is real.
Finally, real hope produces something that seems completely unrelated: submission in marriage. I Peter 3:1-5 says,
Despite appearances, it makes sense that real hope produces submission. To see this, think about why we fear submission so much. We fear having to give all our efforts to meet other people's needs and desires, with nobody - including ourselves - trying to meet our needs and desires. This is a perfectly reasonable fear - if we are hoping that either our own efforts or our spouse will meet our needs. But hoping in God changes the whole picture. We become free to submit to our spouses without fear, because doing so will not deprive us of our hope. (Such submission isn't just wives submitting to their husbands, though that is specifically what Peter mentioned. Submission isn't even just for marriage. Ephesians 5:21,22 talks about Christians submitting to each other, with wives submitting to their husbands as one specific example of a broader principle.)
God is our hope. He is what we hope in, and He is what we hope for. Those who have God have real hope; those who do not have God do not have any real hope. This, then, is the beginning of hope: You must have God. That is, you must have a relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ.
I have this relationship. And yet, all too often I hope for worthless things, and I hope in powerless things - things that cannot bring me what I hope for. How do I change? How do I consistently place my hope where it belongs? Christian life, the answer begins with God, with who He is and what He does.
In Romans 15:13, we read, "Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."
Our Hope comes to live in our hearts in the form of the Holy Spirit. He empowers us to abound in hope. His presence also assures us that this hope is real, rather than merely a nice wish. This is something that God does, but we also have a part - to walk in fellowship with God, listening to His Spirit.
We find the next part of the answer in Romans 15:4. "For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope." The scriptures encourage us to put our hope in the right place. So the next step toward consistently living in hope is to be consistently reading, studying, and meditating on God's word.
Finally, in Colossians 3:1-4 we read:
We are told - commanded - to set our hearts and minds on things above, and specifically on Christ and God. Why are we to do this? First, because Christ has set us free from the futility of trying to reach God by our own efforts. (We read this in Colossians 2, immediately before the passage quoted above.) Second, we are to set our minds on things above because our old life died, and we received a new life in Christ. And third, we are to do this because of our hope. We see this hope at the end of this passage - Christ Himself, the eternal life that He secured for us, and His return. We are to set our hearts and minds on things above because Christ Himself, our hope, is there.
Now this command, to set our hearts and minds on things above, encompasses placing our hope there. In the end, then, placing our hope where it belongs comes down to obeying the command to do so.
It is consistent with our (new) nature to obey this command to set our hearts and minds on things above, but it is not easy. In every moment, through all of our senses, earthly things clamor for our attention. It is hard to break the habit of listening to them. Setting our hearts and minds on things above, then, requires a choice of our will.
We also have a spiritual enemy that works hard to direct our attention to anything but God, so setting our minds on things above is a spiritual battle.
We cannot ignore these mental and spiritual battles. We cannot neglect them. If we do, we will reap the consequences (such as depression) of depending on false hope, even though we actually have real hope.
But our own strength can never win such a war. Spiritual warfare must always be fought with God's strength and power, rather than our own. (We are not totally powerless. We influence spiritual battles by what we believe and what we choose - though we need God's help to believe the truth and to choose what we should.)
Genuine hope can be found only in one place - in God Himself.
We defined hope as what we can rely upon to bring us good. Real hope can only be found in God because only He has the power to bring us what we most desperately need - forgiveness and eternal life. Only He has the love and wisdom to always act for our highest good.
Let us, then, turn away from all the false hopes that surround us, knowing that there is no real hope in any of them. Instead, let us continually set our hearts and minds on God, for real hope is found only in Him.
Copyright 1997 by Mike Stimpson. Permission is freely granted to make and distribute full copies of this article, provided that they are not for profit or commercial use.
Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright© 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.