Practicing Hope
“Hoping is not dreaming. It is not spinning an illusion or fantasy to protect us from our boredom or our pain. It means a confident, alert expectation that God will do what He said He will do. It is imagination put in the harness of faith. It is a willingness to let God do it His way and in His time.”
— Eugene Peterson
Christian hope is about believing in the restorative work that God is actively doing in the world through the resurrection of Jesus and the power and presence of the Spirit. Like St. Eugene said, it’s not a coping mechanism or a way to escape reality. It is realizing that there is a bigger reality at work— a reality St. Dallas calls the Trinitarian Universe. As a Church, we have hope in the renewal of all things in God’s way and His time. Sometimes that means we have to wait. Other times, it means our desires get reshaped into the likeness of Christ. We watch and wait and pray for His Kingdom to come on earth as it is in Heaven, and as a church, we are slowly formed into the answer of that prayer.