Hope

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." Hebrews 11:1 (NIV)

I was about to write on faith, until I read that faith is being sure of what we hope in. So I thought it should probably wait. It's a good question though: What do we hope for? I've thought about that of myself and what do I really hope for in this world. I've come to these three things that I've been hoping for:

1. We are lovers of Jesus, so we hope to be one with him in spiritual intimacy as his spouse one day. So often we get bogged down in either the daily grind (if only the daily grind was just when we made our morning pot of coffee, things would be easier), or we get sidetracked by other "bigger" things in life (eg school, work, relationships, duties to ourselves or to others, and everything else). When deep in our hearts, we are continuously longing for that bare intimacy with God, always one with him in our souls and our minds. If only we could have that always. And we hope for a day when we really will have him, all day long. We will be on a perpetual honeymoon with our Lover where we are always one with him in intimacy.

2. We love each other and so we hope our brothers and sisters in our family of our Father made strong and beautiful in Jesus and see everyone come alive in God. How much we want this? We "invest" so much of our time in conversation, time, and prayer to Jesus so we can see others become who they were meant to be in Christ. We want truly live in a world were we see God imaged in the other members of God's family, all the time. For then we are surrounded by God's image and filled with God always. What a wonderful world we hope for!

3. We love others and so we hope to see our city fall for God. We hope to see our country serve God. We hope to see the world come together as one and worship Jesus as His beloved. We go to third world countries and play with children that live in ghettos so they will see our Father's love and how much he wants them to be in his family. We hope in seeing evil die and God's love flourish everywhere. And in this hope we sacrifice ourselves. We are led by the Spirit to be sent out to ghettos of nations where no one goes so they will know God's love.

Jesus said if we had faith as small as a mustard seed, we could move mountains. It's true. We can become fully alive in Jesus, fully restored, by hoping in his love for us. We hope in Jesus' love for us as our Lover. And so we can say, "I am my Lover's and my Lover is mine." (Song of Songs 6:3. NIV) For those just discovering the intimate, burning love Jesus has for us, we hope in him drawing near. And the same for those in the spiritual desert. We hope Jesus will come near and love us, enjoy us, desire us. And he does. We hope in his salvation and we are saved by him. We hope in our God and we find life. And then we truly live as God's beloved. We live imaging him, fully alive as his lover. We hope in our God :)