What is the ‘Hope I Have’ in What I Believe?
Now I’m working on developing just a few skills that might help me to navigate this weird, remote, online communication thing with people I’m never likely to meet but am seeming to be creating some tenuous and superficial links with, I’ve been trying to engage on a couple of forums. Yes, okay, these have so far only been for those who are autistic and maybe it will stay that way, or maybe I will branch out. Time will tell. So far (it’s been about 14 days, at time of writing), I’d say it’s been partially successful. I replied to something the other day in a thread started by someone else which might not seem like a momentous thing, but it is. I realise it is ridiculous that such an action on my part is momentous, but that fact doesn’t make it any less momentous. Anyway, the initiator of the thread was asking about faith and about what people genuinely believe.
That made me wonder. I mean it made me wonder differently to how I have wondered before, which is possibly odd for someone who professes to having been a Christian for at least the last 38 years. That aside, there is this: “But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope you have. But do this with gentleness and respect…” (I Peter 3:15, NIV)
Why do I have the hope that I have? I guess that maybe needs a question before it. Maybe the pre-question is what is the hope that I have?
On the days when I can’t see anything beyond the mundanity of household chores and I’m being (often viciously) tormented in my head about the loss of my career and how that was a main purpose for my existence (or whatever other thing happens to be prevalent in my pre-frontal cortex on any given day), what is the hope that I have? Does that hope shrink back on ‘those’ days (the head tormenting days, I mean)? Does it ever lessen and become non-hope in the face of whatever life may or may not be bringing at any given time?
Weirdly, no. It doesn’t seem to shift at all. Now I think on it, it’s just there. A hope that is present and is not dependent on circumstances or people or outcomes. 🤔 Well, that’s a thing in and of itself. Maybe I’ve not been internally giving that enough value. That’s probably a thought for me to leave to brew a bit, seeing as it’s only just landed.
So, what is this hope? (Here’s where I attempt to not go down the roads that annoy me when I read stuff and feel the shift happen in the words of the writer. I need to be honest with self and not fall into religious phraseology or terminology, although I will need to allow myself to use bible verses. I need to not just parrot out stock Christian phrases I’ve heard over a lot of years because I’ve almost been brainwashed into saying those things. This is going to be a challenge; I can feel that already.)
What is this hope? What is it that I believe? Fundamentally, for me, it is that God exists. He ‘is’. He exists, as I view it, outside of time as we know it but is present within the constraints of the time we live in too. Where is my evidence for that? I have none. But it’s what I think today, and it’s what I thought yesterday, and I thought it the day before that too.
What else is this hope? What else do I believe? “He is above all and in all and holds all things together (And He Himself existed and is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. [His is the controlling, cohesive force of the universe.]…)” (Colossians 1:17, AMP) “He is the firstborn over all creation. He is the exact living image [the essential manifestation] of the unseen God [the visible representation of the invisible], the firstborn [the preeminent one, the sovereign, and the originator] of all creation.” (Colossians 1:15, AMP). “In Him all things hold together For by Him all things were created in heaven and on earth, [things] visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities; all things were created and exist through Him [that is, by His activity] and for Him.” (Colossians 1:16, AMP)
That hope is on the biggest of scales and covers (like a ridiculously huge umbrella) all that exists (at least, in my mind it does). But what about any hope in Dawn that relates only to Dawn from Dawn’s perspective in this context…that is, Dawn giving an answer about the reason of the hope she, Dawn, has? I guess it’s this, which I readily admit was overly quoted at me as a child (and I most definitely have been influenced by all I have heard and been taught, as we all are in one way or another, for good or ill). “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16, NIV)
I think that’s it.
There is more to life than this life on Earth. There is more to time than the time we experience or understand in the now. There is more than only what is seen with the natural eyes and touched by our senses. ‘This’ (all of life on Earth) isn’t all that exists. This (all of life on Earth) is still incredible, even without there being more, but there is also more. Some of it existing alongside our experiences of life and some of it entirely out of the ‘time’ in which we live…maybe.
It’s not only the ‘more’ though. I think the hope of what I believe is somehow more secure in me because I can choose to believe it or not. It is a choice. There is no strong-arming and there is no need for a sales pitch and manipulation techniques to be used on me. I get to choose. Not because of what anyone tells me I must think, but because I choose to think as I do and believe what I do. And I love that this is the case for every individual.
Irrespective of my level of ‘belief accuracy’ (let’s call it that for now as I can’t think of a better way of phrasing it), I am God’s because I believe He ‘is’.
There is no need for specific prayers to be prayed or particular processes to be followed. If the bible says, “whoever believes in Him…” and it does, then that’s me. I do believe He ‘is’. Irrefutably, I believe that. I just do. It doesn’t mean I’m ‘right’ or ‘wrong’…it is just what I believe.
My understanding (albeit a very limited understanding because of the truth that my mind is only finite and I know I am only able to see very little) of the God presented in the bible, is of One who does not judge. It is of One who loves irrespective of anything I (or anyone else) may do or not do. It is of One who elevates the ‘weak’ and demotes the ‘strong’.
I cannot (and neither can anyone else) earn a ‘place’. I cannot (and neither can anyone else) earn ‘being loved’. But all that aside, I believe I do have a place and I am loved just because I believe He ‘is’.
Does that fix the life situations or the internal head torments? No. Is that okay? Yes. Totally.
In some ways, it’s as simple as that. That’s what I believe and is the hope I have, both for who He is (irrespective of the impact of that on me) and because there is more than the temporary life we have on Earth (and that is inclusive of the impact on me).
I once had a reasonably intense discussion with someone about the thing of hope, and the difference between hope on Earth and the hope of what is believed. I consider it futile and dangerous to live in hope of specific outcomes or aims for our Earthly life. I’m not saying they shouldn’t be pursued – I actually think it is good to pursue outcomes and aims…but making out that the hope referred to in the bible is about what we hope for on Earth is my bone of contention. Hopes on Earth will (I believe) shift, falter, slip back and even disappear. I believe that kind of hope can make the heart sick. That is not the hope I am writing about.
The belief that God ‘is’, the belief that I am accepted and loved by Him irrespective of my own darkness or light, along with the anticipation that there is more (in this life and beyond this life) than we can see…these are the reasons for the hope that I have. And that hope is anchor-like. It does not shift or change because of life events, weather patterns or internal head battles.