May we live with hope in all we do

"So we do not lose heart," the apostle Paul writes. This came after Paul summarized the troubles he had faced: "We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed." (2 Corinthians 4:8-9). All of that, and they do not lose heart!

There is research suggesting that people who are naturally optimistic learn only from information that reinforces that rosy outlook. That would seem to apply to Paul. He put all those troubles into the category of a "slight momentary affliction" that "is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure" (v. 17). That "eternal weight of glory" outcome was so bright that Paul could disregard his present troubles as a sign of anything about the future.

Are you an optimist? In many ways, optimism seems necessary for personal progress. We have to be able to imagine better realities when life is not going our way.

Optimism can have its problems, of course. It can cause us to not take prudent precautions, skip health checkups, not apply sunscreen, and take other risks we later regret. There are definitely situations where we'd be a lot better off if we'd approached them expecting - and preparing for - the worst.

Optimism is often another word for hope. Biblically speaking, hope, along with faith and love, are the things that the apostle Paul said, in 1 Corinthians 13, remain when all else fails. "And now faith, hope, and love abide," is how he put it, and he meant that when we look for the qualities of living the Christian life, these three things are the solid footing on which we stand.

Theologian Emil Brunner once said, "the fate of humanity is dependent on its supply of hope." If we limit ourselves to just the evidence of this existence, where right seems to win only some of the time, we can make a case for a pessimistic outlook and even for hopelessness.

But Christianity does not bank on just what we can make of this life. Christianity is quite realistic about the difficulties of life, but it insists that those difficulties are not what define our present reality, and where we are headed when we are following Jesus.

So the hope to which Christianity clings is not based on a mere bright outlook, but on the promises of God found in Scripture. The New Testament expresses a precise and concrete confidence in and expectation for the future that's rooted explicitly in God's promises to all who follow Jesus.

Christian author Henri Nouwen once wrote that “All the great spiritual leaders in history were people of hope. Abraham, Moses, Ruth, Mary, Jesus…all lived with a promise in their hearts that guided them toward the future without the need to know exactly what it would look like.” May we follow their examples, living with hope, in all that we do.