HOPE | Mar 31-Apr 6, 2025

To catch up with our Lent journey, check out this post that explains our practice.

We are trained by movies and media to expect easy resolution to our despair. The hero saves the day. The guy gets the girl. The underdog trains hard and wins the championship. I love military movies and sports stories where sheer grit and determination conquers all. But real life gets hard, sometimes very, very, very hard and resolution so unattainable.

My more recent health challenges caught me in a riptide of despair, the intensity of pain and dysfunction pulling me under. I remember lying in bed so many nights with my phone in my hand with 9-1 already typed, my thumb hovering over one more 1 to complete a call for help. Disease and dysfunction draining any determination. I used to think of hope as something that I had to churn up, to create ideas of hope in my mind, to strive for hope, or at the very least it depended on me to cling to hope. Instead, what I experienced is that Hope is a person. Hope is Jesus Christ. Hope dives into the deep to rescue me. Hope fights for me. Hope breathes for me. Hope journeys with me. Hope holds me. Hope hears me. Hope creates a survival glow in the darkness.

Despair can feel all consuming, sneaky, ever attacking, drowning out hope. Moment by moment, I needed to decide will I companion with despair, or will I companion with Hope? Really this is a challenge to my trust. Will I trust Jesus even when all is death around me? To choose the way of life, I repeated the simple phrase of “Trusting Jesus!”, whenever the despair was sucking me under. That phrase became the short form of declaring that I trust that Jesus is with me. I trust that Hope will never leave me nor forsake me. In the midst of all that is horrific and unbearable, there is Hope, because Jesus holds true as the anchor of my soul.

I choose life. I choose Jesus. I choose Hope.

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READ

Hebrews 6:18-19, Romans 15:13

REFLECT

Invite the Holy Spirit into your reflections and welcome the voice of Jesus to help you answer these questions.

1. How is the fear of death showing up in my life as despair?

2. What lies am I believing about myself, others, or God that contribute to this fear?

RESPOND

Jesus, I surrender despair to you and agree that hope is the better pathway to life in you.

I renounce the lie that _____________________________________.

Now, choose repentance by turning toward God.

Today I choose to turn away from despair and turn toward hope.

Walk in repentance by turning towards others.

Jesus, who is someone that has been affected by the ways that despair has expressed itself in my life? How can I be a person of life towards them by walking in hope?

RECEIVE

Spend some time listening for the voice of Jesus and receiving his mercy and grace.

What gifts of life do you want to give me in exchange for the fear of death that causes me to turn to despair to feel safe?

FAST

As a way of living into your repentance, consider fasting from thoughts of despair this week. Each time your thoughts get fixated on despair or start spinning on topics of worry, choose instead to declare truth. You may use my phrase of “Trusting Jesus!” or choose a verse that directly combats the lie that is leading you to despair. Invite Jesus to reveal Himself to you as Hope and look for the ways His Presence is breaking through the darkness with bits of hope.