Hard To Hope

Suffering can hit like a hammer or torture like slow drips of water. No matter what its form or force, suffering hurts physically and spiritually. There isn’t a person on the planet able to escape such pain. Money can’t stop the decay of death, no matter how much botox or reconstructive surgery you can afford. And no amount of acquired power is strong enough to fend off all the different types of hurt this groaning world can produce. On our own, there seems little to do but despair under the inevitable sorrow.

Even for believers, who put their faith in the eventual restoration God is bringing about, it can be hard to find hope. When suffering begins to suffocate, it’s difficult to remember how the “Romans Road” we walked toward salvation is vital to how we travel through pain and sorrow. Most of us can admit hope is a difficult currency to find at times. Others of us, who can’t admit this, live a spiritual lifestyle bordering on bankruptcy. Either way, we all have seasons where we find ourselves in a spiritual breadline of sorts. These are seasons when we receive from others more than we can give. They are times when we are forced to depend instead of being dependable for others.

What are we trying to get from others in these seasons of deep need? Hope. Our souls beg for the church to comfort the weary and downtrodden. When pain crowds us and grief blurs our vision, we need others to remind us of the hope found in Jesus. We don’t need cliches that leave us starved for lack of sustenance. And we certainly don’t need to be beat up for not having enough faith. We need fellow sufferers, saved not by their ability to believe but by the belief given to them, to remind us that our suffering is not how this story ends. Sometimes we need others to carry us when we break down on this long journey.

It’s not magic and it’s not “mind over matter”. It’s a community of faith functionally practicing the art of communion. We need to remember the broken body and shed blood of Christ more than when we have a stale piece of bread and sip of juice on Sundays. We need to “serve” one another communion wherever we find another growing faint in their suffering. We need help remembering how the suffering Jesus chose for our sake is the greater context of our suffering. Pain shrinks our world. So, we need help remembering how his wounds will one day bring about our full healing. When we feel ripped apart by the thorns and thistles of this fallen world, we need help remembering that Jesus wore a crown of thorns as our king. When it’s hard to hope, we need others to serve us a remembrance of our union with Christ with their presence.

This isn’t a trite “I feel your pain” or offering someone the latest book you think will be helpful. More than these, it’s not scolding the weak and broken for not having enough faith. It’s being a fellow traveler who doesn’t forget how easy it can be for fallen human beings to loose sight of a God in the business of gradual reconciliation. It’s remembering your own neediness. Sometimes hoping is hard. Because of Jesus, we don’t have to act like it’s not, or “disciple” someone into shape until they act better. It’s easier to find some hope when someone is willing to serve you the hope they received when they had none themselves.

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