Don’t Get Your Hopes Up!

Really?   Is that the wisdom of the day?  To minimize the desires of the heart so that the sting of disappointment is bearable!  I had hoped that this Covid stuff would have been over by now, but I’m told to not get my hopes up.  I was hoping that we would be having Sunday morning worship together by now, but I guess I had my hopes too high.  I had even hoped that my Texas Longhorns were going to be able to play their rematch with the LSU Tigers, but once again, I am reminded that I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up.

Well, I don’t know about you, but I am tired of hearing about hopelessness.  In fact, I am sick of it!  One of my favorite Scriptures on hope comes from Proverbs 13:12 “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”  Imagine that, having hope but waiting for a future day to be fulfilled by it.  I can understand the world falling into a rut like that, but for those of us who have faith in the Almighty, we don’t have an excuse. For God’s word in Hebrews tells us that “faith is the confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see (11:1).”  So just because I can’t see hope, doesn’t mean it is not there.

In chapter 5 of the book of Romans, Paul tells us that “hope does not disappoint us,” so why wait, come on, go ahead and get your hopes up!  Dallas Willard tells us that “hope is the confident anticipation of good.”  What a great attitude to have to start your day. You have probably heard it said that there are only two ways to wake up in the morning, “good morning Lord,” or “oh Lord, it’s morning!”  Likewise, you can choose to hope and anticipate good, or default to fear which is “the anticipation of evil.”  So, I don’t know about you, but I want to get my hopes up!

You know, even if we think our hopes have been dashed, the good Lord might have a different plan for us.  Even when we think hope is gone it just might be that we can’t see it yet.  The two disciples on the road to Emmaus on that day of resurrection show us that the greatest of hopes can sometimes be veiled!  You see Luke tells us in his 24th chapter that the two on the road talking to an unrecognizable Jesus confessed “we had hoped that he (Jesus) would be the one who was going to set Israel free!” Little did they know at the time that hope was looking at them square in the eyes.

So, I acknowledge to you that I have listened to the world proclaim, “don’t get your hopes up,” one time too many.  I choose not to defer hope. How, you might ask?  By meditating on God’s word, that’s how. You see, the two on the road to Emmaus, received hope and initially didn’t even know it.  “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he (Jesus) explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself (Luke 24:27).”  That revelation gave them the hope that they thought they had lost.  In Jesus Christ there is always hope!

So even though we continue to have Covid in our lives today, we still have hope. And even though we are not gathering Sunday mornings yet, we have hope for the day we will.  And you know, it’s not a big deal Texas and LSU won’t be playing their game together, Texas would have won anyway!

Grace and Peace,

Scott Kaak