Misguided Hope

I’ve always been a hopeful person.  Hope is mandatory, in my opinion, or life is very grim indeed.  Hope is also painful.  Because when what you wish for doesn’t come to pass, you feel as if you lost something.  The word hope is tattooed on my body.  It’s my daughter’s middle name. 

At the first meeting of the new single moms’ group at my church, we discussed hope tonight – where you should place your hope.  And where you shouldn’t.

I realized I’m guilty of misdirected hope.  I put too much hope into people and things, and not enough hope in God.  People and things inevitably fail you, as the instructor pointed out to us.  I thought of the leap of happiness I feel when something comes into my life that I’ve been hoping for – be it a job, an item, a romance, resources, etc.  I put too much stock in people and in things.  Then when they fall apart, I fall apart too.  I can’t help but wonder if I would operate differently if I put more hope and trust in God.

Don’t get me wrong – all theory and idealism aside, I think it is impossible to not have hope in people and things and to not count on them in some way for our happiness.  Likewise, even the most faithful Christian is going to experience pain when people and things break, for lack of a better word. 

Even though I tend to give lots of chances to people and look past things that bother me, when they disappointment me or harm me, it hurts deeply.  Somehow - despite my experiences, wisdom, luck, and track record – I come to believe deeply in people.  Perhaps too easily. 

I’ve always been cognizant of the fact that if you expect one person to be your everything, you are going to be frustrated and they will feel like a failure.  But now I’m thinking that even if you spread those expectations across many people and many things, we can still wind up frustrated.  And so is God.  Because we aren’t leaning on him or placing our hope in him.

The instructor tonight pointed out that every hurtful thing we’ve heard or thought about ourselves can be found nowhere in the Bible.  Nowhere in the bible does is it say that God thinks I should get over myself or that my stretchmarks are hideous or that I’m stupid or have poodle hair….none of it is in there.  He’s kind of my biggest fan.  J