Hope Can Be Found When Things Seem To Suck
I keep finding reasons to hope again.
It is a complicated process as I have long been a person who was an optimist about situations and life. I can say that grief and this valley of suck stripped this from me for an extended period. And while I have been blessed with friendships and counsel that have encouraged me, it has been a simple transition within my mind that has slowly been transferred to my soul.
The spiritual journey is more than our natural realm. We must acknowledge, in the Church of Jesus Christ, no less, we are doing supernatural work.
This movement from natural to the supernatural is more alive, it seems to me, outside the churches of our day than within. Thankfully, there are those traditions who hold to this, though it seems funny the contrast. Many of my friends and colleagues in the Pentecostal/Charismatic churches hold to this but I found it too during my family leave, in the Roman Catholic Church.
Even so, the Church, its clergy, and many Christians are torn, too often, by a desire to find respectability in the World and scholastic measurements. Certain things can be observed but these cannot account for the interior life. There is a supernatural and spiritual work being done behind the scenes and no worldly justification is needed for proof.
“If your hopes are being disappointed just now it means that they are being purified. There is nothing noble the human mind has ever hoped for or dreamed of that will not be fulfilled. Don’t jump to conclusions too quickly, many things lie unsolved, and the biggest test of all is that God looks as if he were totally indifferent. Remain spiritually tenacious,” wrote Oswald Chambers, the holiness preacher, and devotional writer. Likewise, Francis of Assisi notes, “The spirit of the world wishes and cares much for words, but little for work; and it seeks not religion and interior sanctity of spirit, but wishes and desires a religion and sanctity appearing from without…”
When I read and hear anyone dismiss prayer as “mere” words or as just expressions of empathy with no meaning, what is exhibited is a trust only in the natural realm and a denial of hope that comes from belief and faith in God being over ALL things. You are certainly welcome to the conclusion but be very careful in the judgment you are passing on something you choose to know nothing about. A life of prayer, a life immersed in the spiritual and supernatural, is often a life quietly serving and giving generously.
I have hope because I believe love to be real and vibrant part of the whole of Creation. For if God is love (1 John 4:8) and the greatest of the three fruits of the spiritual realm is love, (1 Corinthians 13:13) then we have reason to hold to both our faith and our hope.
So yes, I will remain spiritually tenacious…
and
I
will
hope!
May I Ask? Why do you have hope? What is keeping you from hoping?
The spiritual journey is more than our natural realm. We must acknowledge, in the Church of Jesus Christ, no less, we are doing supernatural work.
This movement from natural to the supernatural is more alive, it seems to me, outside the churches of our day than within. Thankfully, there are those traditions who hold to this, though it seems funny the contrast. Many of my friends and colleagues in the Pentecostal/Charismatic churches hold to this but I found it too during my family leave, in the Roman Catholic Church.
Even so, the Church, its clergy, and many Christians are torn, too often, by a desire to find respectability in the World and scholastic measurements. Certain things can be observed but these cannot account for the interior life. There is a supernatural and spiritual work being done behind the scenes and no worldly justification is needed for proof.
When I read and hear anyone dismiss prayer as “mere” words or as just expressions of empathy with no meaning, what is exhibited is a trust only in the natural realm and a denial of hope that comes from belief and faith in God being over ALL things. You are certainly welcome to the conclusion but be very careful in the judgment you are passing on something you choose to know nothing about. A life of prayer, a life immersed in the spiritual and supernatural, is often a life quietly serving and giving generously.
I have hope because I believe love to be real and vibrant part of the whole of Creation. For if God is love (1 John 4:8) and the greatest of the three fruits of the spiritual realm is love, (1 Corinthians 13:13) then we have reason to hold to both our faith and our hope.
So yes, I will remain spiritually tenacious…
and
I
will
hope!
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