Joyful In Hope

             Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. (Romans 12:12)

 

This verse is just made for two of my favorite questions: What does it mean? What does it look like? It also happens to have words that I’ve explored, and for which I’ve developed my own definitions based on material I’ve read.

Joy: the firm conviction that one is cared for by someone who can fulfill that caring.

Hope: the firm conviction in a positive outcome, condition, or event.

Patient: giving up godhood and allowing time for others (including God) to achieve, accomplish, or agree.

Affliction: Something that causes pain or suffering.

Faithful: Stubbornly, even aggressively refusing to let go, stop doing, or walk away.

Prayer: Talking to God.

 

Putting these together, Paul instructs us to be firmly convinced that God cares for us and will cause all things to work together for good, to give time God to work things together for good even when we’re suffering, and to never, ever stop talking to God or walk away from Him in search of someone else to work things together for good. There may come a time when we have to change our ideas about what the “good” involved is. Hebrews 11 makes it clear that many of the most faithful people didn’t see the thing they were promised in their lifetimes, and often, the thing they were commended for and didn’t see was big enough that it couldn’t be contained in their lifetimes.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we – or I – tend to fail to have joy in my hopes even or things I want to see today, fail to have patience when I stub my toe or my will is not granted by the least person, place, or thing, and can’t be bothered to pray about much of anything. (Granted, this is my negative view of myself. I’m not sure I’m actually quite that bad. In other words, this is the lie I tell myself.) The point is that, as C. S. Lewis once described it, we tend to be happy with our mudpies when we could be looking forward to building sandcastles by the sea. In fact, we seem to be happiest being unhappy with our mudpies.

We tend to be like the men told about in another story. A man goes to a medieval construction site and asks one of the workers what he’s doing. He said, “I’m laying bricks.” The next man said, “I’m building a wall.” A third said, “I’m building a cathedral.” As we focus too narrowly. This goes back to vision. What are we doing that’s worth doing? What would excite our souls when the alarm goes off in the morning? What would we be proud of for our legacy to be? What would allow us to be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer?