| This article was originally published on the blog Necat Draco in 2013. The weeks of Advent are often defined by themes and two of the most commonly used themes for the first week of Advent are Wait and Hope. In this post, the two are brought together. | |
If we have a hope, then we wait for it.
If we wait, we must be hoping for something.
The two are intertwined.
There is a saying (it's even a book title) in the personal development / self-help / business advice arena. "Hope is not a strategy."
Indeed. It's true, but not in the way that most motivational speakers mean it.
Hope is where you go when all your strategies fail.
We all depend on various strategies to carve meaning and significance out of the raw stuff of our lives. When those strategies fail (and they always fail, eventually) we are left with either despair, or hope. Despair is too harsh, too final. So most of us continue to choose hope in the only way we know how.
We devise more strategies that will fail in their turn. The definition of insanity.
Advent is a time for confessing the failure of our strategies and beholding our hope in his pure and perfect simplicity. It is a ticket off the merry go round of strategy.
For our Hope is not a strategy, nor a philosophy, nor a cause, nor an idea. He is a person. His name is Jesus.
And in Advent we remember what it is to wait on Him. We remember to wait. and hope.
For he has already come, is coming now and is still yet to come. In his coming he does everything that needs doing to bring our hope to completion.
Wait. Hope.
He comes.
If we wait, we must be hoping for something.
The two are intertwined.
There is a saying (it's even a book title) in the personal development / self-help / business advice arena. "Hope is not a strategy."
Indeed. It's true, but not in the way that most motivational speakers mean it.
Hope is where you go when all your strategies fail.
We all depend on various strategies to carve meaning and significance out of the raw stuff of our lives. When those strategies fail (and they always fail, eventually) we are left with either despair, or hope. Despair is too harsh, too final. So most of us continue to choose hope in the only way we know how.
We devise more strategies that will fail in their turn. The definition of insanity.
Advent is a time for confessing the failure of our strategies and beholding our hope in his pure and perfect simplicity. It is a ticket off the merry go round of strategy.
For our Hope is not a strategy, nor a philosophy, nor a cause, nor an idea. He is a person. His name is Jesus.
And in Advent we remember what it is to wait on Him. We remember to wait. and hope.
For he has already come, is coming now and is still yet to come. In his coming he does everything that needs doing to bring our hope to completion.
Wait. Hope.
He comes.
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