“Hope is a tender thing.”
I typed it in a text to a friend, and then began to really think about what I’d written.
Hope is a tender thing. I feel it, and I believe it, even as I hold that hope is also sturdy and strong. We are made for hope, called to hope, and need hope. But we often feel vulnerable when we hope, exposed a bit—somehow not so confident.
Because hope usually has to do with what we cannot control. It taps into our longings and dreams, take us out past our current realities, and touches places in our soul for which we do not have words. In many ways it feels like hope sets us up for disappointment.
Two Bible verses (there may be more), one in the Old Testament and one in the New Testament, link hope and disappointment (also translated as “put to shame”). But Isaiah 49:23 and Romans 5:5 both say that hope—specifically hope in the Lord and hope produced by endurance in suffering—does not disappoint.
Does this mean what I hope for will come true? Does it mean I won’t be hurt when I dare to hope? No, I don’t think we have that guarantee. So what do we have?
The Isaiah 49 passage speaks of redemption, God’s timing, His provision, and His compassion. This is the chapter where God describes His commitment to His people in this way: “See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” (v.16) Recently I read something that made me think, perhaps for the first time, how our names scarred God’s hands before the nails scarred His hands.
When we hope in Him, our hope is in One whose heart beats and hands ache with compassion for us.
The Romans 5 passage says that hope does not disappoint, “because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” Somehow even when our dreams don’t come true, when our vulnerable self is left wanting, and when our hearts hurt from suffering, something else is also happening. The love of God is flowing through more crevices in our hearts where, by the Holy Spirit, His love is at home.
When we hope in Him, we end up living more and more in God’s love.
I’ll say it this way: When we keep hoping, hope keeps us tender.
Hope is a tender thing, and hoping keeps our hearts tender. And that tenderness is not a bad thing—not something that will ultimately bring us disappointment or shame—but a thing of beautiful trust.
It turns out that reality does include so much we cannot control. Longings are doorways to the soul. And vulnerability blesses us and others when it happens in the safety of Almighty and Everlasting Love. And so, we hope.