Don't Tell Me Not to Hope.

When I was younger, I was presented with the sound-seeming advice, "Hope for the best; expect the worst." Mainly, I was so instructed because at that point, I did not handle any letdown in my expectations very well, and, as my parents kept telling me, needed to learn to be more flexible. Well, I guess that's changed; I'm now quite laid-back when it comes to most things, especially last-minute changes in plans.

However, there are some things I hope I never take lying down, and expecting the worst is one of them. Sure, it's a good way to avoid getting hurt. It's a great way to close yourself off into a place where emotions are easier to deal with, because that hope never gets to float very high off the sewage-infested ground level. And nine times out of ten, you will see exactly what you're expecting to see.

I overheard someone recently go on and on (and on) about how bad Memphis has gotten over the years. Every "better" neighborhood this individual has moved to has gradually gotten worse and worse until, according to this person, even their current area (which actually happens to be one of the nicest, cleanest, and safest areas in the entire city) has become "a slum." I could not make eye contact or even acknowledge that I'd overheard the comment. It made me both laugh at the level of ignorance of someone who obviously has no idea whatsoever what a slum actually is, and grieve at the level of cynicism and hypocrisy that were flowing out in those words.

It's easy to complain. It's easy to wall ourselves off from other people's pain or pretend their lives are less important than ours. It's easy to have a mindset of self-preservation and try to avoid facing things that are too hard or too scary or too awful or too hopeless. It's easy to talk yourself into just accepting that everything will stay as it is, or keep getting worse, and there's nothing that's going to change that.

But can I challenge all of us with a single verse? "Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things" (-1 Corinthians 13:7). We are not called to self-preserve. We're called to follow the example of the One who gave everything, the One who is the very definition of what love really means. We're called to love a world that's broken, because He so loved us when we were broken beyond any repair but His mighty, healing, loving hand. We're called to bear all things, not just the pleasant things or the easy things or the bearable things. We're called to believe and to hope--not to accept that the way things are or the way things are going is the way it will always be, but to set our gaze on the horizon and look to the One who makes all things new. We're called to endure the here and now that are broken, that seem hopeless, that hurt just to look at.

As C.S. Lewis once said, "To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."

Yes, love hurts. It's not safe. It's quite often the very opposite of what we instinctively want to do. We'd much rather sit around and watch as lives shatter around us, and cry out, "I called it! I knew things would turn out this way." It feels much safer to do that, than to actually get your hands and feet dirty wading into the darkness and the brokenness. It's much easier to deal with if you close yourself off and decide it's not your problem. It's easier to judge, it's easier to criticize, and it's easier to keep your expectations exactly at the bottom so that any slight change for the better shocks you.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather hope. I'd rather look into the eyes of hurting, confused, and broken people I know, and look for what God is planning to do in and through their lives. I don't follow a powerless, distant being, any more than I follow a distant, mighty puppeteer. I don't follow someone who sees it all and doesn't care. I follow the God who is the Father of Compassion, who holds all things in His power, and who chooses to use brokenness to bring about wholeness. Think about it: Jesus allowed Himself to be broken, so that we might be healed. He chooses to use us, without making us fully perfect (yet), to showcase His strength and perfection even in our weakness.

I'd rather look the brokenness in the face and feel the pain, feel the depth of the darkness and the weight of the odds stacked against anything good coming out of this--and listen for the whisper of a God who knows exactly how the story will play out, how healing will come, how His light will cast out the darkness and His love will conquer all the odds. I may not be the answer, but He always is. So don't tell me not to hope. Don't tell me to lay down and expect things to take a turn for the worst.

I will fight to hope, to love like He loves, until the day I die. I will let my heart be broken over and over and deeper and deeper, rather than closing it off until it becomes indifferent. I'm not on this earth for me.

"Let your love be strong, and I don't care what goes down. Let your love be strong enough to weather through the thunderclouds." -Switchfoot