June 27
Hope, the Fighter
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. ––Romans 15:13
Musical artist and iconoclast Nick Cave understands tragedy. In 2015 his 15-year-old son, Arthur, fell to his death from a cliff near his home in Brighton, England. Another son, Jethro, died in 2022. Cave said that early in his life, he held the world and the people in it in contempt, and it took devastation to cause him to find hope:
“Unlike cynicism, hopefulness is hard-earned, makes demands upon us, and can often feel like the most indefensible and lonely place on Earth. Hopefulness is not a neutral position either. It is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism.”
When my friends, KC and his wife, Julia, found out that the baby boy growing in her womb had terminal genetic defects, KC said, “I have faith in God that He can heal my son. But I can’t afford hope; hope is too expensive of a commodity for me to invest in.”
Hope is a fragile creature. One minute it lights up our world, and the very next it’s extinguished by tragedy, betrayal, or a negative diagnosis. We’ve all been there; we’ve all received the devastating news. I appreciate what Nick Cave has to say about the actions we take to remain hopeful in the face of terrible things:
“Each redemptive or loving act, as small as you like, such as reading to your little boy, or showing him a thing you love, or singing him a song, or putting on his shoes, keeps the devil down in the hole. It says the world and its inhabitants have value and are worth defending. It says the world is worth believing in. In time, we come to find that it is so.”
Brother-in-the-journey, absence of hope can allow the devil out of his hole. We must fight him with the adversarial power of hope we have in Jesus. His entire ministry was adversarial, and the hope He brings is everlasting. But our adversary is three-fold: the world (and it’s hollow promises); the flesh (others’ fallen nature and our own); and the devil (who is organized and will do all he can to keep you bereft of hope).
Fight for hope, even when you feel the opposite. Invite the Holy Spirit into your pain, and ask Him to fight for you when you don’t have the strength to fight for yourself.
Father, sometimes I have no hope, and have no energy to fight for it. Activate Your Holy Spirit in me to help me fight for hope.
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https://kottke.org/24/08/hopefulness-is-the-warrior-emotion