But hope that is seen is no hope at all. (Romans 8:24b)

A close friend of mine was just honored with “Teacher of the Year” at his school; it’s a title well-deserved and attained after many difficult years, as teaching is no light profession.  This pinnacle of recognition follows many moments of hoping his hard work was producing fruit in years when it was hard to see fruit.  When asked about his greatest accomplishment, he responded, “my greatest accomplishment is akin to filling a lake with one drop of water at a time.”

One drop in a lake can feel insignificant, but he returns to the classroom because of a hope that something greater is happening.

This is true for many teachers.  They are tasked with shepherding 9 or more months of growth in a group of students they did not choose, with experiences and challenges they cannot control, towards metrics they cannot guarantee.  What is success for a teacher if your best efforts cannot promise every student arrives at the optimal destination?  In what should a teacher hope?

It is not perfection — it can’t be — but the belief that the long-game investment in a student produces something deeper and greater than grades; it is hope that the single drop you produce is important, even if you never see the lake filled.

I have sat with this idea of hope this year as hardships hit and plans crumbled.  In my moments of frustration, I sensed God gently asking, “In what is your hope?”

If we’re honest, our hope is often in security, or comfort, or happiness, or any number of seemingly good things.  We enter a situation and forecast what should happen for those things to happen, and when they don’t we are crushed.

If our hope is only in the here and now, we have severely missed God’s invitation.  As Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 15:19, “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.”  He knew what it was to have the optimal “here and now”, and threw it away for the sake of Christ, considering it garbage. (Philippians 3)  If all that mattered was the here and now, and Paul traded security, reputation, and power for beatings, insults, and imprisonment, his would be a piteous, because all his hardship would have been for nothing.  This was not his perception:

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.  Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.  For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have?  But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
Romans 8:22-25

Paul’s hope was in something greater than the here-and-now; it was in something eternal, something greater than his life.  For this reason, he was able to die to all else and live for Christ, holding to a hope beyond him.  In fact, this hope did not come from him, but God:

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
Romans 15:13

This is good news for you. 

This means you do not need to muster hope, but rather receive it.

This means that hope is not shaped by circumstances, but can shape how we see circumstances.

This means that the goal of hope is “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20) and thus we can hope even before we see the results.

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.
These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.
Hebrews 11:1,2,39,40

This means you can cultivate hope in God today.

When Jesus arrived as a baby, he arrived among people who thought they had hope in God, but actually had hope in here-and-now things, and it took decades and the Spirit to realize what Jesus meant when he said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10)  We have access to that Spirit now; today, you can pray, “Spirit, reveal where my hope is misplaced, and help me to abound in true hope.”

I believe the God of hope will respond.