It Is You, O Lord, Who Are My Hope, Psalm 71: 5-6

The 18th-century English poet, Alexander Pope, gave us a memorable aphorism about hope in his famous poem, “Essay on Man”: “Hope springs eternal in the human breast; Man never is, but always to be blest. The soul, uneasy, and confin’d from home, rests and expiates in a life to come.” Pope’s poem is a reflection on humanity’s place in a divinely ordered universe that must use reason and humility to live morally in a broken world. What is hope?

According to the philosopher, Peter Kreeft, hope is not a feeling or wishful thinking. It is not a thought or a spontaneous desire. Hope is a free choice of the will based on the nature of ultimate reality. What is this ‘ultimate reality’? For Kreeft, it is God, the very nature of God, that is, love. God alone is totally trustworthy because God alone is God. Our hope is in the ultimate reality of God’s love and mercy. Our hope is not only in some ‘thing’ but in Someone. What do the scriptures tell us about hope?

Psalm 71 speaks of this hope in the ultimate reality of God very beautifully: “It is you, O Lord, who are my hope, my trust, O Lord, since my youth. On you I have leaned from my birth, from my mother’s womb you have been my help. My hope has always been in you” (Ps 71: 5-6). We also see in this psalm the very recognizable reality that hope is often tested in the furnace of doubt: “You have burdened me with bitter troubles.” But the psalmist does not leave us there; he follows that line with a description of that inner instinct of hope that is anchored in that other virtue, faith. He writes, “But you will give me back my life. You will raise me from the depths of the earth; you will exalt me and console me again” (vs. 20-21). Yes! That is our hope.

In Psalm 42 we see the same recognizable swing between doubt and hope: “Why, my soul, are you downcast? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God” (Ps. 42:11). The prophet Isaiah gives us a powerful, poetic image of hope saying: “But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not grow faint” (Is. 40:31). The Holy Spirit inspires Jeremiah to say about hope: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jer. 29:11).

The Apostle, Paul, recognizes the struggle and the reality of hope in our daily lives, too. He recognizes how difficult hope is, but that it is not just wishful thinking. He writes: “For creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God” even though it is “subject to futility,” that it, and we ourselves, “groan even now to be freed from our slavery to corruption, to share in the glorious freedom of the children of God” (Rm. 8:19). Though we are burdened by our finite capacities, and our brokenness, we yearn for what seems to be so far away and out of reach. So, Paul tells us that, “…if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience” (Rm. 8:24-25). Hope is a hard, but grace-filled virtue, especially in the waiting. But what do we put our hope in? In the ultimate (already seen) reality of God’s love and mercy.

One final thought. Hope is not just a feeling. If it is real, it is put into action. We hope in God, the God of Creation, the God who is the ultimate reality, the One in whom all of creation, and we ourselves, take our being. And here is the kicker, even though we are sinners, God’s unconquerable love redeemed us and remains with us, even now, even in the midst of our suffering. This is the reason for our hope. Let us put our hope in God and his love for us into action by loving one another as he loved us.

“May the God of hope fill you with joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Rm. 15:13).