Hope and Sorrow

I never write about what I intend. You don't know how tremendously ironic it is that I just typed that; originally this entry began with an anecdote about how my plans never work out due to missing some mundane detail. Turns out that that's exactly what this is. I was all prepared to sit down and blog my little heart out about how clueless we are, and then my clues are lost. I really think God's hilarious, putting what we really need to hear right next to what we think we need to hear.

My name is James BeShears, and this is about Hope. And a Sevendust album.

Romans 8 is an odd chapter, and I'll sum up the preface to the part I'm going to actually use like this (vs 18-23): the world is pregnant with anticipation, waiting some sort of "future glory." Now on to the part I love, verses 24-25:
"For in Hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? but if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience."

Hope. It's a simple word, a tossed-about word, something we now relate to it not raining tomorrow or Wal-Mart having our favorite kind of ice cream in-stock. That is not the Hope Paul writes about. We talk about his Hope a lot, right? Hope for eternal life - Great. Hope for answered prayer - Sure. Hope that is now manifested in the world we live in.

---Wat?

Paul lived in darkness, then in animosity, and then in jail. But most importantly, he lived and breathed Hope. And I think we have a whole lot of what he prayed for. This world is not perfect, but it's what the early Church lacked: opportunity. I think this is what Paul yearned for. What he prayed for. What he hoped for. And what are we to do with this? We do our best to manifest Heaven on Earth. We love people. We strive for peace. We show people why we do this whole God thing in the first place. And what else? We keep on hoping.

Enough with the mission statement. Here's the truth: I tried to pray about an hour ago, and I couldn't. I didn't know how to pray, even though I knew exactly what and who I wanted to talk to God about. I was so overwhelmed with insecurity and frustration that I couldn't make a coherent thought. And what did I read?

"Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God" (Romans 8.26-27, located right after the Hope passage).

This is why I'm sitting here right now; I don't know how to pray. But I think Hope does. What is prayer if not Hope? Is there any emotion, any action, more expressive and conducive to humility and the spirit of Christian childhood than just saying, "God, I don't know what to want. I just know that it's better than this, and you want it too"?
I've talked to a lot of people about how I think Faith is essentially admitting that we're not in control, acknowledging the existence of a God that is NOT the fat kid with a magnifying glass trying to scorch the Earth for screwing up, but instead a warm, ever-loving Father who just wants us to ask for help. To admit that we're not enough. That's what I'm starting to believe Hope is; a reason to have Faith.

So here's what I'm really getting at: Hope is the rationale for living free of worry.

If there's a God with an all-encompassing plan, full of infinite wisdom and unconditional love, what the hell am I going to accomplish by trying to solve the world's mysteries? If I believe in this Father, this Abba, this genius who is the greatest biologist, philosopher, physicist, and any other expert we can possibly imagine, and this same guy cares about each and every single one of us and loves us literally infinitely more than we can possibly love anyone or anything, what concerns can I have?

That's Hope, friends. Pure Hope. Ardent, powerful, passionate, relentless, resilient, unquenchable Hope that cannot be defeated and cannot be stolen away. So that's where Sorrow comes in. It doesn't come in.

My dad once told me when I was about eight years old, "Life's a bitch, and then you die." He was joking; that's what he does. But it makes me want to get on my knees and weep at the fact that there are people who wake up every day and think that's true. People without that God I just talked about. People without that Hope. Perspective is everything; if you want to see a world full of faults and bigotry and sheer hatred, there it is. But if you want to see a world capable of redemption, of purity, and of love? It's there too. And I'm putting all I've got in the God that wants to see that world manifested. Because any guy that loves Billy Graham, Osama bin Laden, Britney Spears, and little ole me infinitely more than I love bacon, blues, and boobies combined, that's a guy who gets my trust. Who gets my Hope.