Hope is a Choice

“Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.” (Ro 4:18 AV)

There are times that we are challenged to either give up hope, or choose to trust in hope.  When the odds are against us and we believe we are not going to make it, when we see no other options, when the sky is dark and there are no more sunny days; we can either accept what we believe to be the inevitable, or, we can choose to have hope no matter how far-fetched it might be.  We can either choose to have hope in a gracious God even though we came to the end of all possibilities, or we can assume there are things too big for the God whom we say we trust.  Hope doesn’t need to see the answer.  All it needs it to assume there might be one which we cannot see nor have thought of as yet.

Abraham knew that it was physically impossible for Sarah and he to conceive a child.  It was obvious.  The physical ability to accomplish such a feat was clearly past.  Abraham had ceased to produce what he would physically need as well as Sarah.  Their bodies were beyond the ability to physically do that which God had promised.  They were beyond hope.  It was against all hope.  If one were to go to the OB/GYN and tell the doctor God had promised to do this, he would probably refer this couple to a Psychiatrist.  No sane person would assert such a possibility.   But here is the principle.  Even though it seemed there was no hope, Abraham choose to have hope.  He didn’t know how the LORD was going to accomplish this.  Nature itself could not.  But, rather than give up all hope, he chose to have hope.  In other words, rather than succumb to an impossibility, Abraham choose to believe in a hopeless possibility.  He chose the brighter side rather than the darker side.  He chose to see the flicker of a candle in the vast darkness of a wilderness rather than all the pitch black around him.  He chose to be an optimist rather than a pessimist.  He chose to believe the sun was going to rise tomorrow rather than the flood before him.

We live in perilous times.  The Devil desires to rob God’s people of all hope.  To loose hope is to become frozen in our actions.  Like a prey animal that if overtaken with fear, we are inactive in the things of God waiting for the inevitable.  We are idle in our hopelessness.  We have stopped evangelizing.  We have become nothing more than idle saints taking up space rather than hope filled saints knowing that our labor is not in vain.  Either we can choose to remain in hopelessness, or choose to have hope even if we cannot see the end.  The choice is ours.