How to Have Unbeatable Hope Regardless Your Circumstance

Post by the Husband

“…because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people, the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel” (Colossians 1:4-5)

To truly love others, we have to have hope.

But this hope is not just for a “better” tomorrow, but for a perfect tomorrow, “because of the hope laid up for you in heaven” .

Now how does that translate practically?

As we ride through this strange time globally, it seems obvious to us that things aren’t as they “should” be.

It seems like light years now that the news was flooded with scenes of terrorism, bushfires, and then the recent premature death of a famous basketball icon and his daughter! But where are they now?

If the Bible verse above had read “because of the hope you have in earth”, I would be very worried that this hope could easily be shaken. After this pandemic, who knows what else will happen to this world or to our country? Even if it all “works out okay” as people would like to believe, your health could still disappear in an instant. All it really take is a blood clot smaller than the size of an ant to clog an artery somewhere in your brain or heart, and you will never be the same. (Ouch!)

And even if you hold onto your health for the next 10 or 20 years, or as long as only God knows — you will eventually succumb to “Father Time”. Have you ever heard of the term before? It’s what they call it at NBA. The commentators would say “nobody has beaten Father Time”. And it’s true! Ask Michael Jordan, or anyone who is “past their prime” and they will eventually and reluctantly admit that they could not beat “Father Time” even with the strongest of wills. Their bodies or something would eventually give way. Speed slows, strength goes, and we are brought to a grinding halt. 

Such is the state of not just our bodies, but the cosmos.

Everything on this side of eternity ends at some point. So if you really understand that, then there is no real hope here. Yes you can hope that your children and grandchildren will carry on your legacy, but at the end of the day, from “dust” we came and “to dust” we’ll go. 

So if the Bible verse had stated “because of the hope you have on earth”, I would argue that both faith and love would be characteristically weak and subject to every wind and storm and the seeming randomness of nature.

My loving you would be only as long as I am well enough and neither would the faith nor the love for God and for others has any permanency if we are basing it on the here and now of earth.

We can of course hope to keep our job during this crises, and that the world will recover as it has so many times before, and the cruise industry will resume cruising and the restaurants would open and families would gather, but our ultimate hope should not be on this earth here.

… there is hope that is “laid up for you in heaven” — and this is where we are hoping for not just the world becoming a “better” place, but a “perfect” place.

We can hope not only for the world to become a better place, but a perfect place.

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Our hope will be found not in compulsive dopamine-seeking activities like clicking on one video after another on YouTube or getting feedback on social media, but to be in the presence of the Almighty Creator altogether, because all the things that we look forward to on earth are a poor reflection of what they will be in heaven. 

As the book of Colossians says “set your minds on things above and not beneath”.

 
Even as we all long for things to get back to “normal” and hope that we can have all the things that we used to have, I encourage all of us; let us not just fixate our hope on things on this earth, but on things that are permanent. Let’s hope for something greater and far bigger thing than just “business as usual”.