Thornton Wilder said ‘Hope is a projection of the imagination; so is despair. Despair all too readily embraces the ills it foresees; hope is an energy and arouses the mind to explore every possibility to combat them…‘
As someone who is pessimistic by nature and who finds it all too easy to ’embrace the ills’ my vivid imagination can conceive, it has taken me a long time to realise the truths of this statement. Essentially, I have to choose between hope and despair on a daily basis, which largely means learning to train my imagination to meditate on truth and believe what God says, rather than dwelling on what my gloomy outlook can readily embellish.
Despair feels rather like being out of your depth and panicking that you will drown. But once you’ve learned to swim, being out of your depth doesn’t necessarily lead to drowning! Even if you’re tired and weary, you can tread water until you find a second wind; you don’t automatically glug down to the bottom and die…
You can’t just ‘hope’ to order. But by focussing attention on who God is (rather than on who we are, who other people are, on situations beyond our control), we can learn to hope in God. The best way I’ve found to do this is to meditate on who God says He is.
The revelation we have in Ps 130 focuses on key characteristics of God:
God’s unfailing love:
- Save me because of your unfailing love. (Ps 6:4)
- …for I have always been mindful of your unfailing love and have lived in reliance on your faithfulness (Ps 26:3)
- The Lord’s unfailing love surrounds the one who trusts in him. (Ps 32:10)
- The earth is full of his unfailing love. (Ps 33:5)
- How priceless is your unfailing love, O God! (Ps 36:7)
- Rescue us because of your unfailing love. (Ps 44:26)
- Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. (Ps 51:1)
- Show us your unfailing love, Lord, and grant us your salvation. (Ps 85:7)
God as our Redeemer:
- I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. (Job 19:25)
- Do not be afraid, you worm Jacob, little Israel, do not fear, for I myself will help you,” declares the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. (Is 41:14)
- Our Redeemer—the Lord Almighty is his name— is the Holy One of Israel. (Is 47:14)
- For your Maker is your husband— the Lord Almighty is his name— the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth. (Is 54:4)
- For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. (1 Pet 1:18-19)
God’s forgiveness:
- God forgives all our sins (Ps 103:2)
- Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? (Micah 7:18)
- God has come to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins (Luke 1:77)
- In Christ we have redemption through the forgiveness of sins (Col 1:14)
As we dwell on these things, we find despair dissipates, because we know that nothing can now separate us from God’s love (see Rom 8:38-39).