Hope is the great stabilizer. It steadies us in times of fear and difficulty, not because we know that everything will turn out as we want, but because we know that God is trustworthy. Hope is what helps us stay on course regardless of circumstances. Biblical hope finds its roots in God and in his goodness, mercy, and power. We exercise our hope when we endure patiently. We nurture our hope when we read God’s Word. We strengthen our hope when we follow God faithfully. Though we hope for earthly blessings, our greatest hope is aimed at the life to come, when God will not only wipe away our tears but invite us to share his joy forever.
In the New Testament hope is rooted firmly in Jesus—in his life, death, and resurrection as well as in his promise to come again in glory. We can have hope for this life because the Holy Spirit indwells us, re-creating the life of Christ within us. Biblical hope offers us a new kind of strength, enabling us to be patient and enduring regardless of what we face. Miqweh Yisrael (MIK-weh yis-ra-AIL), the Hope of Israel, he is the God who saves his people.
Praying to Miqweh Yisrael
Struck by a car while riding his motorcycle, Andy DeVries landed in the hospital, where physicians told him he had broken his leg. The news was grim, because Andy’s leg was not merely broken but shattered. It might have to be amputated.
One day, prior to surgery, a physician’s assistant by the name of Sarah Scholl asked Andy a surprising question. “Andy, what kind of golf ball do you play?”
To a man lying in bed contemplating the loss of a leg, her question seemed insensitive, but Andy managed a reply. “I like Titleist’s Pro V1 ball,” he told her.
The next day, flowers appeared in Andy’s room and in the middle of the flowers sat a pack of Titleist Pro V1 balls. Andy was astonished.
Sarah’s gesture took him by surprise and helped him to stop thinking about how sorry he should feel for himself. Instead, as he said, it brought a glimmer of hope. For the first time, he began to believe that life could be good even with only one leg.
Then came the surgery. Remarkably, instead of taking the leg mid thigh as he thought he might have to, the surgeon noted a little bit of blood flow and left the leg intact. But DeVries wasn’t out of the woods yet. He knew he might never get out of a wheel chair.
When Sarah Scholl wheeled him out to the ambulance for his ride home, she told him she had a favor to ask. By then the two had developed a close doctor-patient relationship. Sarah told him she had lost her father some time ago. Would Andy, she wondered, consider walking her down the aisle?
“Sarah, you don’t even have a boyfriend,” came his surprised reply.
“Someday I will,” she told him.
Andy kept in touch with Sarah after that. One day, seven years after his accident, 62-year-old Andy checked his email to find a note from Sarah. Here’s what it said: I have a boyfriend—will you come?
Until the day Sarah picked him up at the airport prior to her wedding in Oregon, Sarah had never seen Andy standing upright. Now he was going to walk her down the aisle.
This is how Sarah characterizes her interaction with Andy in the hospital: “Can you imagine what it would feel like to wonder if you’d come out of the OR with or without a limb?… The human condition is delicate.… I made Andy a promise a long time ago, a promise I had every intention of keeping.”
Sarah is right. Our human condition is delicate. God knows just how delicate, and so he, too, has made promises designed to help us through our worst difficulties. Hope is simply the eager anticipation that those promises will one day come true. As Christians we believe in these promises because we believe in the one who made them. Because of Miqweh Yisrael, our promise-keeping God, we have been given a future full of hope.
