The Bottomlessness of True Hope

My experience of life is this:

None of it’s full of bliss.

But still there’s an abiding joy

When it’s faith I will deploy.

And faith it is in life

That gives us hope in strife

Where faith meets despair

There’s a hope nowhere near bare.

A bottomless hope

Gives me strength to cope

Because I cannot give up

When keeps God filling my cup.

***

There is something about hope that compels us to not give up, even if we do give up for a short time in despair. Hope gives us the energy, and the passion to get through, that we would ordinarily not have. We cannot explain true hope; we just go forward in faith for some vague reason, knowing the hunch we have is worthy of being acted on. Perhaps we have more information, but not typically. Hope keeps us going in a positive direction, though we don’t always know why. Hope overcomes despair.

Yet, what gives hope its stripes is the presence of a transient despair.

Despair seems such a necessary component of the strengthening of hope. Surely hope cannot grow muscles to fly higher in faith if not for the occasional scenario of despairing that is endured.

So despair is not always a bad thing, particularly when we human beings tend to overplay the whole idea of woe-is-me. One bad day or one bad situation and we tend to experience a significant degree of despair. But in context, in perspective, it really isn’t that bad, as things end up working out.

Over the longer run hope works out to be rather bottomless, especially if we have faith – which is deliberately couched as an operating system for the resilient person, and not so much the acquisition of any religion. Although I have to, on personal experience, advocate for Christian faith, because of the grace God has shown me, which propels my faith every day.

***

Hope can be bottomless for those who have faith – a real, operant faith. Without faith, we might quickly find some distraction – any distraction – and gather ourselves in some sort of ‘useful’ denial (which is actually not useful at all). And if our faith is flagging we will choose the easy way out – our hope is not so bottomless anymore.

***

Hope is bottomless and a good answer for despair, if we have the faith to keep stepping. Hope needs no light to guide it because it, itself, is a light. If you are in darkness now, drink from the well of hope, keep stepping in faith, and don’t give up.

© 2014 S. J. Wickham.