Hope and hope

I have had so many thoughts about hope and it's importance. But hope requires faith/trust and therefore there is an integral gap between guarantees and wishes. This gap is vulnerability which brings out our need for faith and hope.

In many conversations this week - especially in the last 3 days - I've realized that hope colours a black and white world. A black and white world only sees things one way, for the optimist everything is rosy and pain and disappointment don't exist or at least are denied. For those for whom nothing good ever seems to happen, it is very difficult to find hope to hold onto. But hope can produce a little colour in a black and white world. Much of my work seems to be helping people find this little glimpse of colour in the black and whiteness. To avoid being a hypocrite, I am forced also to find moments of colour in my own life. If I am to be present to others then I must also work out of the presence of God in my own life. God must be a reality in my own life.

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Phil 2:12