When I was 28 years old and had just been fired from a supervisor’s position I had taken only four short months earlier, it was a pretty dark time for me.  Although it wasn’t a job I cared much for, it did provide a decent living and paid the bills of which there were plenty. To complicate matters, this was supposed to be a fresh start, a new beginning, but it was already shaping up to be a disastrous reboot, and a third reboot at that. 

The second fresh start had only lasted a couple of months, so I guess the good news at that point was that this one had lasted twice as long.  The divorce that kicked off my first “do over” took the longest and was the most painful, but these last two failures were the most confusing and left me with a nagging new thought that I might somehow be the problem.  A new word had crept into my psyche that was driving me ever closer to the edge of the abyss of hopelessness, and that word was “loser.”  

Up until this point, my confidence in self and my ability to dictate my own future had been pretty high.  The idea of quitting or being a quitter was an affront to me and those whom I had marked with this label in the past had garnered little sympathy from me.  Now, I myself was feeling like one of them.

Hope was fading…, it wasn’t gone yet, but the mirage was blurring and the light of hope of a new day, a new vision was dimming.  I was confused by all the setbacks, and the loss of clarity in my life had shaken me to my core.  

          In all these attempted new beginnings, I might as well have joined the witness protection program as I pretty much abandoned my old life in a feeble attempt at a massive re-start.  Gone was my prestigious job as a captain in the United States Army, my homes in Kentucky and Alabama and my wife of four and a half years.  In less than one year, I had moved five different times, lived in three different states, started two new careers and an MBA, none of which had lasted more than a couple of months, or pacified the longing in my heart like an itch that I just couldn’t seem to scratch.

As I exhaustively reflected on these failures, for some reason, my mind routinely rolled the tape back to my childhood.  What was so different then as a child? Why was it that my heart always seemed filled with hope?  I remember it well enough.  Even in the midst of difficult struggles, there was a wellspring of hope, even though childhood seemed like it would drag on forever.  Whether imagined or real, hope was to me a feeling that tomorrow would be better, victory was just around the corner, or at a minimum, someday I would be old enough to change my own destiny.   

I believe the resiliency of childhood is wrapped up in the power of our imagination, our limited experiences, and a sense that there is a whole world outside of our circumstances waiting for us.  It is reinforced by a feeling of invincibility that somehow you are the one person in the world that can make a difference.  I’m not sure if this is how others would describe it, but that is what it boiled down to for me. 

However, as we grow and wade through more and more of life’s experiences, hope for many seems to diminish with each passing year, or each passing failure. Hope seems to stretch out further and further into the distance, more like a mirage in the desert that fades when closed in upon than anything tangible that can any longer be grasped with the hands, or tasted with the tongue.

Reflecting on the past, it seems like whenever what was hoped for became a reality, it gave birth to either new hope for something else further down the road, or resigned disappointment that wounded, or deadened future hope just a little bit more based upon the inadequate reality of what was achieved or received.

So what is hope really anyway?  Is it just a feeling or desire, an abstract idea found in a region of our hearts and minds that our biological bodies use as fuel for the furnace of our souls?  Is it just there to help give us a sense of purpose in an otherwise random and chaotic world? Or is it more than that. 

Looking back once again into my own childhood experiences, I hoped for things, dreamed of adventures in faraway places, that people would like me, that my parents wouldn’t fight so much. I hoped my family could always be together, I hoped I would one day grow up and be a man, an adventurous, courageous and independent man. I hoped I wouldn’t die or be afraid, I hoped for a lot of things. As a child I put my hope in what I believe many of us do, in things, in ideas, dreams, relationships, the future. But sometime into adulthood, the nagging sense crept into my mind that those things were inadequate at providing the peace and joy I sought from them.

For me, this brought disappointment after disappointment which led to discouragement and depression, the ultimate by-product of misplaced hope. It seems that when your dreams fail, your plans fail, and your relationships fail to continue to fuel your hope, then hope eventually withers and is replaced by despair, a feeling that things won’t get better, they won’t improve, and your life is perpetually in danger of becoming meaningless.

Don’t miss what I’m say here though, I didn’t mean to suggest that all my dreams, plans, or relationships failed, for some things I have been quite successful at, but what these combined experiences have failed to do was fuel a greater sense of hope, or purpose.   

I believe the arrival of this moment eventually comes to all of us, but at dramatically different times and places, and at varying degrees.  Though it may not come on you all of a sudden like, the beginning of it starts when this nagging question begins, “Is this it, is this all there is?”  And of course, there is the possibility that you may not have yet asked yourself this question, but it also may be that your moment of serious self-reflection just hasn’t grasped your attention yet.   Regardless of where you’re at, it is a serious question worth pondering. 

While we often tell our children not to always trust in their feelings, hope is something entirely different.  It is not a short-term emotion born out of the heat of the moment or a reaction to some immediate stimulus, but rather an essential long term fuel for our heart and soul that propels us forward in this journey through life.    

Kill hope and you risk killing the hope bearer. For if hope is nothing more than a feeling or an emotion, then it is the most essential feeling of them all. It is the exception to the rule. It is the only one worth grasping with our heart and holding onto for dear life because it is hope that fuels the human spirit. It is the feeling in the pit of our stomach that gives us the courage to endure hardship one more day. It is hope for the horizon of a new day that inspires us to continue through the storms of life.

However, as important as hope is to the human spirit; for it to not eventually shrivel up and die, it is even more important that we fix our hope on the right compass heading.

The book of Luke gives us some great insight into where this search for true hope should lead us. –

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him.   He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Luke 4:17-21

For the true source of hope lies not in money, power, prestige or accomplishments, but in a person, and that person is Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the author of hope. What Jesus read here was the fulfillment of a prophesy spoken hundreds of years before his birth by the prophet Isaiah. And with his arrival, healings, miracles and teachings, he demonstrated the truth of this prophesy, for all those listening and all future generations who would open their eyes and hearts to this truth.

“Blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence.” Jeremiah 17:7

When hope is placed in Jesus Christ, you’ll know for certain, that this is not all there is.  There is beauty beyond the grave…., if you trust in Him!