(7 Minute Read)
The following is adopted from a sermon I wrote in my last year of ministry school. It is now my life motto.
I played college football for five years. My senior year we were ranked 8th in the country going into our last two games, poised to win the conference and host our playoff games that year—this would have been the first time in thirty years that that had happened and our school and city were buzzing with excitement and anticipation.
All we had to do was win the last two games.
One of them was going to be an easy win and the other was actually going to be a challenge.
It was against another nationally ranked team in our conference, an away game at their place, and they were a very talented team.
And then we lost on the last play of the game.
We went from the 8th ranked team in the nation, to not being ranked at all.
We went from a guaranteed playoff game at home, to completely losing our chance at even going to the playoffs.
There went our dream of 4-straight conference championships.
There went our dream of hosting a playoff game for our school.
There went our dream of even going to the playoffs again, especially in our last year of playing football ever.
On that day, Hope went out of our team.
You see, I look at Hope like it’s a balloon.
And on that day, all of the air came out of our teams balloon.
Hope is the thing that fills our soul up with fresh perspective, fresh peace, and fresh joy as it infills us. Hope acts as a balloon as it lifts us up and carry’s us from what we can only currently see, into a different view of our life.
I don’t know if you can relate to this, but for me Hope used to be something that I thought I didn’t have much power over—in fact, I often fell victim to my emotions and what my circumstances were telling me.
If I’m honest, though, I actually thought Jesus had very little power over it too. I thought He was also falling victim to my situations and pain, and that His authority of Hope was not powerful enough to carry me.
I was wrong about that.
There is no doubt in my mind that the authority of Jesus is more powerful than any force in the entire universe. And that, therefore, means His Hope is more powerful than anything, too.
As you might have read in my last post, my previous definition of Hope was probably something more like the word “wish”, and it had no faith or power behind it.
But the biblical definition of hope is all-together different from a wish. It goes something like this:
“Hope is the JOYFUL expectancy…… that something Good WILL happen…because I have a GOOD DAD.”
It wasn’t just that football loss that caused me to lose hope, I had lived a long part of my life, almost my whole life, without Hope because I didn’t have a core belief that “GOD (my Dad) is good”.
I didn’t believe that something good was going to happen. I wasn’t in anticipation of it at all, really. And I definitely didn’t have joy within my expectation.
And it’s because my heart was sick from hopelessness.
Proverbs 13:12 says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick.”
My explanation of this verse is:
“It’s not that you didn’t get what you were hoping for that makes your heart sick, it’s that you let go of your Hope balloon and that action made you sick with hopelessness.”
And that’s what happened to me through my life. That’s why I lived so long without hope. There wasn’t anything necessarily catastrophic that took place in my life, just little by little I let Hope go.
This past year that changed.
You see, I thought “hopelessness” happened in like a big loud moment, you know?
Like something really big and bad had to happen (like the sound of a balloon popping) for me to actually be a person who was “hopeless”.
But that’s not true.
Yes, there are actually big and bad things that happen, but our hope isn’t completely stolen from us in those moments, that’s not how it happens.
Hopelessness happens like this…
It’s when you blow up a balloon and forget to tie it off—the air slowly runs out.
Things like:
“Man, I can’t pay for rent again, what am I going to do?…”—> air comes out.
“I’m this far into debt, how will I ever have my dream of owning a house? There’s no way I’ll get approved with my credit.” —> air comes out.
“We’ve been waiting and waiting for her healing from cancer, but it hasn’t come, I’m going to stop pretending and just face reality.”—> air comes out.
“I want close relationships but I’m scared to be vulnerable so that makes people stay at a distance from me. I won’t ever have close intimate friends.”—> air comes out.
”We’ve been trying for children for years and haven’t been able to conceive, we should just give up.”—> air comes out.
This is how hopelessness sets in to our soul. It’s the slow letting out of Hope from our life without any infilling to replace it.
But this is the exact place that our mindset and beliefs can shift. This is the vital change to make.
The fight for Hope is coming back in to you today!
We can’t just shift to something made up, or even shift to a hope in ourselves. Our Hope has to be anchored into something outside of ourselves, something eternal. The infilling of Hope has to come from a source Higher than ourselves.
And the core piece to this infilling HAS TO BE the belief that God is good—that we have a GOOD DAD. It’s the baseline for everything in our life, really, but especially healthy hope.
If hope is my balloon, then the anchored belief that”God is good” is the air that continually fills it up. This is where the authority of Jesus comes in to affect!
“God is good” looks like this:
Romans 5:1-6
“1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. 3 And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; 4 and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; 5 and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. 6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.”
Here’s five things about Hope from this passage:
- HOPE DOES NOT DISAPPOINT—choosing Hope, rather than despair, will not disappoint you, especially in troubled times.
- We must take hold of Hope and grab it ourselves—this looks like “exulting (even) in our tribulations” because we know it will produce something beautiful.
- We have HOPE as an anchor because Jesus went before us through the veil and anchored our identity, salvation, and life into His solid foundation—before we ever knew Him!
- Our Hope isn’t a mere wish, it’s a strong assurance because its foundation is the Promise of God—the God who says we are at peace with Him. The God who does not lie.
- Hope is a tent-stake in our soul, tethered to the authority of Jesus, and ushered in to our hearts by the Holy Spirit’s love.
Can I tell you something: I actually don’t think it’s God’s role to fill my balloon with Hope.
I know, I know, that sounds crazy but here me, first.
It’s absolutely true that Jesus did all of the work! We cannot save ourselves or give ourselves Hope. He paid the FULL price for my (and your) life. HE IS THE SOURCE OF HOPE. And there are definitely times when we need a powerful touch from Him to sustain us.
But what I used to think was Jesus’ role of constantly sustaining my Hope balloons, I now realize as my responsibility to keep my Hope balloons filled with. It’s Jesus’ role to provide the Hope, it’s my role to fill them.
It is my job to stay Hope-filled!
In the day-to-day walk with Christ I believe it’s actually my job to fill my hope balloons up with Hope. It’s my job to take the core belief of “GOD IS GOOD” and renew my spirit with it. It’s my job to choose to believe that Jesus really paid the full price for me, even before I knew Him, especially when I don’t feel it. It’s my job to continually recall to memory the promises God has declared over my life, and pick my Hopes up again. It’s my job to keep all of this goodness of God anchored into my soul!
This takes faith, right? But after all, we are a people of faith: Sometimes we have to exercise belief in His promises even when we feel or see the opposite.
This is the life of the Christian. We have no other option. We have to have it to survive. We have to have Hope.
After we lost that game on that Saturday of my senior year I lost Hope.
But on the following Monday the Holy Spirit spoke to me softly and clearly, and told me, “I need you to bring life back to this team. I need you to get them to believe in something they cannot see right now. I need you to have Hope.”
So the next day before practice, I got to walk out as the captain of a defeated team and gather my brothers in tight. And at the close of practice we walked back off that field as a defeated team no longer. We were Hope-filled because we chose to believe something higher than our reality told us to believe.
And let me tell you I feel the same mandate today. I feel like God has sent me here as a Team Captain. And He’s sent me here to get in your face and to remind you of the future you have. He’s sent me here to present you with Hope so you can remind your soul of what He’s going to do.
I’m here to put some air back into your balloon!
I’m here to remind you of the God He has been to you before.
I’m here to remind you of the promises He’s given.
I’m here to remind you that He paid the highest price for each one of us to live!
I’m here to remind you that He has plans for your life!
I’m here to remind you that the same God who resurrected Jesus from the grave lives inside of you right now.
I’m here to bring you to a place where you feel the air of the Goodness of God fill your Hope balloons up once again.
I’m here to help you breathe deeply once again.
…
May we be a people who always remember our Hope balloons, fill them every day, and carry them with us everywhere we go.
With gentleness and wisdom,
Seth
P.S. We ended up winning the conference championship and our first round playoff game that year. The season didn’t end like we expected after that devastating loss. Whether that’s because we chose Hope or not, I’m not sure. But I’m forever grateful for choosing it either way.
The Serpent Dove 