And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
1Corinthians13:13
I have always wondered about Paul's list.
I can understand him wanting to reduce the basics of life to 3 things. Three reminds us of the Trinity, three is easy to remember and many things come in lists of threes (e.g. sun, moon and stars; body, soul and spirit; yesterday, today and tomorrow)
I'm also happy with faith and love - I can understand how they made it to the top of the pile with regard to a life with God. It makes sense that faith is how we relate to God and that love is crucial in our vertical and horizontal relationships. And I understand that love is the greatest.
But hope? I've wondered whether peace wouldn't have been better? Surely we need peace more than hope? Or what about humility? Wouldn't it be more desirable to have humble people than hopeful people? Or what about courage? Surely one needs to be courageous in our exercise of faith and love?
And what is hope anyway? We say "I hope it rains tomorrow, I hope I pass the test, I hope the bulls win." Is this what hope is - a vague sense of the power of positive thinking?
Nope... hope is more than this. Hope is the fuel of those who live in today's broken realities. Hope is what gets us out of bed in the morning. And lost hope is the primary cause of depression and anxiety today.
Hope is the key to a living reality that we can take hold of. Hope is a sense, a conviction, a stirring within that assures us that God is there, that He is good and that He has a plan.
Hope is God's gift to us - we can't do much to _generate_ it, but we CAN do a lot to _stifle_ it. We overwhelm hope with cynicism and negativity, we ignore hope when we are obsessed with past hurts, we poison hope when we try to medicate life's pain with drugs, alcohol or hedonism, we choke hope when we place our security in the proliferation of possessions and we sabotage hope when we place our feelings at the center of the universe.
Sometimes we are out of love and don't have the strength for faith. Hope gets us up and hope causes us to reach for God. Hope is planted deep in us by a God who specializes in making us indomitable through His power at work in us.
Elsewhere (Rom5:5) Paul writes: "And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."
Hope is our reality fuel - God gives it to us: don't choke it, stifle it, or ignore it. Deep inside there is a conviction bubbling that we are not alone and that we are loved. When you grab on to that hope, then faith and love will follow.
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Theo Groeneveld theo@emmanuel.org.za
