You're My Only Hope
by Ed Sweeny
Some of you remember watching Star Wars for the first time in the late 1970’s. I loved it, and was captivated by the adventure, the excitement, and the storyline of an epic battle being fought in multiple dimensions. It was pure good versus evil, and anyone caught up in the magic was swept away by the narrative of the the light side struggling with the dark side. Seeing Princess Leia projected as a hologram from R2D2 is forever etched in my memory, as well as her famous words, “Help me, Obi-wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.” We didn’t fully understand then how everything would be connected. But as time went on, the story line unfolded and things began to make sense.
The Star Wars saga has lasted for almost 50 years, and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. There is good reason for this. People were made for stories. We were made to live them, read them, and tell them over and over and over again. Good stories span generations and never get old. Today, we are living in the midst of an epic story.
A word that is commonly used these days is “narrative”. Narrative is defined as “a spoken or written account of connected events, or a story”. People often ask, what narrative are you listening to these days? In other words, what story line are you following, and how do you view this epic story we find ourselves in today? Everyone has a worldview - a lens through which we see, interpret, and understand everything that is happening in the world around us. A “Biblical worldview” is seeing all past and present events in light of Scripture, and allowing the Bible to assign ultimate meaning to all of history.
Clearly, we are living in unprecedented times. One vital way to assign meaning and make sense of all the chaos in the world is to choose to filter it all through the lens of Scripture. To choose to see the world through a Biblical worldview. The narrative of this worldview is that God is always good, always sovereign (in control), and always working behind the scenes to redeem and restore his people.
It is easy to look at the world around us and feel hopeless. The chaos and brokenness are almost more than any of us can bear. In Romans, the apostle Paul offers us a helpful strategy for finding real and lasting hope in this broken world. He says that we can actually choose to rejoice in our sufferings, and find hope in the midst of chaos and hopelessness.
“Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame.” - Romans 5:3-5
According to Romans 5:3-5, the 3-stage journey to hope begins with suffering. We must expect it and not reject it. Suffering will come to every one of us. Sometimes it will be light suffering, other times it will be deep suffering. But we are called to live counter-culturally in a world that does not necessarily like us, recognize us, or agree with us. This will create tension, struggle, and suffering. If you are currently suffering in any capacity right now, it is likely a sign that God is at work to draw you to himself in a new and deeper way. He wants you to stand firm in faith regardless of your circumstances and trust that he is good. He wants you to persevere.
Perseverance is stage 2 on the path to lasting hope. When you are suffering, you must persevere through it. Paul says that suffering actually produces perseverance - that it is a fruit of the suffering we experience. To persevere and not give up, we must tap into the strength that comes only from God himself. We will never be able to truly persevere in our own strength. When we see suffering through the lens of a Biblical worldview, we can choose to believe that God is good and that he knows what he is doing. We can choose to believe that the world isn’t actually falling apart, that it is instead being remade over time by the God who created it in the first place.
When we persevere and continue to live in trust and faith, it produces character. This is stage 3 on the path to hope. Who doesn’t want to build and develop character? Paul says that the way to having strong character is to persevere through suffering. The type of character that is being shaped in us as we persevere in faith is best described as hope. When we grow in Biblical character, we learn to have hope in all circumstances. We learn to reject the temptation to feel hopeless.
Hope can be a difficult concept to understand. The more common use of “hope” is in regard to tangible or visible areas of life. I hope I get a new bike for Christmas. I hope college football actually happens this fall. I hope my marriage will change someday. I hope we don’t lose all of our freedoms in America. I hope my kids will get back to school soon. But these are small hopes compared to the great hope of knowing the one who is in control of all things! A person who has real and lasting hope can live a life that is tethered to unchanging truth about God and the created world. The facts are actually quite simple: God is always sovereign and God is always good - regardless of what things may look like or feel like on the outside.
Do you feel hopeful or hopeless these days? What narrative are you listening to and following? Where are you in Paul’s 3-stage journey to lasting hope?
The narrative of Scripture provides us examples on every page of men and women who have gone before us and walked by faith, not by sight. Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Job, Paul, Peter, and of course Jesus Christ himself - all had to walk through this 3-stage journey to find lasting hope that would sustain them through seasons of darkness and suffering. You and me are living in the same narrative and grand story that all the great characters in Scripture lived in. Having a Biblical worldview allows us to be tethered to a transcendent truth that never changes: God is always sovereign and always good.
I pray that God is taking you to a place where you can truly say to Jesus (like Leia said to Obi-wan), “You are my only hope”. As we cling to him and him alone, our eyes will continue to see this grand story unfolding right before our very eyes.