“The Missing Ingredient” (Part One)

As a boy, I wanted to impress my parents by baking them a cake. However, since I didn’t know how to bake cakes, I didn’t get all the ingredients into the mix and, as a result of the missing ingredients the cake was a disaster.

I have a fear that something is sadly missing in the way in which we live for and represent Christ in the world of our day. We do not seem to be a people of hope… and in the seemingly hopeless times in which we live, that is a tragedy.

So, let’s think about that together. Let’s think about “hope.” Two popular, and contrasting, views on the nature of hope illustrate the confusion that abounds on this issue…

• Nietzsche- “Hope is the worst of evils, for it prolongs the torments of man.”
• Erik Erikson- “Hope is both the earliest and the most indispensable virtue inherent in the state of being alive. If life is to be sustained hope must remain, even where confidence is wounded, trust impaired.”

So, then, what is it?

What Is Hope?

What is isn’t… wishful thinking; positive approach; empty optimism… nevertheless, it seems that, for many, hope is more characterized pleasant thoughts than by substantial reality.

• Pearl Buck- “To eat bread without hope is still slowly to starve to death.”
• Dale Carnegie- “Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.”
• Christopher Reeve- “Once you choose hope, anything’s possible.”

Those are not wrong—they just aren’t hope. They are dreams, or wishes, or nice thoughts. Hope, to be real, must have substance. It must have foundation. It must have roots…

What it is… One definition of hope states that it is “desire accompanied by expectation of or belief in fulfillment.” For the follower of Christ it is even more clear. Hope is a heart of joyful and confident expectation because we know the God of all hope.

For those in Christ:

• Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13)
• For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers. (1 Tim.4:10)

This means that one of the dominant characteristics of a believers life is that we are to be people of hope. Tomorrow we will consider where that kind of confident hope can be found…