The process of hoping

My youngest daughter returned to college yesterday. We're not talking about missing a semester. We're talking about missing whole years. Missing time while getting a job, having a child, getting married, fighting with husband's ex-wife over custody, finding time to pay for bills, feed the dogs, move from a house being bought to one being rented and on and on. You know, living life so hard you become tired from simply living life?

So
very
tired.

I pray that her desire to better herself and her family is stronger than her desire to rest, which can flat out eat up hope if given half a chance. Not the rest, the desire to.

You understand what I mean? Being tired can gnaw on your hope like a carnivore chewing on the bone of a carcass. Sitting in a big ol' chair in the evening, wondering why you do what you do, getting out that ol' life-scale, the one you use to measure if doing what you do out-weighs what you want to do in the future, you get a big chunk of quit building up in you.

The ones who become whatever it is we call a success are the ones who learn to rest in whatever moments we're given to rest and then getting up and doing it all over again. The ones who fail are the ones who pull out not the quit card and throw it on the counter like some sort of remedy for their situation.

That kind of tired that eats at you, causes you to argue with even yourself, causes you to hate when you never feel that way otherwise, causes you to wonder and whine. That's the tired that sometimes causes what God called sin. Can't handle the problem any other way? Then ________. You fill in the blank with the sin you didn't want to commit but did.

In the seventh chapter of the book of Romans, Paul writes about this kind of tired (I believe): "I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway."

That's the kind of tiredness, loneliness, helplessness that leads our built-in sin nature, the inheritance that our father Adam was kind enough to leave us with, that is forcefully hidden inside to come out in ways we wished would never have been seen.

The cure? A savior, but not just any kind of savior, but a savior who understood going into silent retreat and spending quality, restful time with his Father is a restful, hopeful occurrence. He called these moments "prayer." Our savior understood that recharging our spiritual battery is a beautiful thing, a restful thing.

I was reading about this notion of rest this morning (perhaps I'm tired because I arose early to read about rest), and I was taken by this scripture:“‘I saw the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. ²⁶ Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest in hope,"

The interesting portion of the passage there to me is "my body will rest in hope."

Nowhere does it say that God will GIVE us anything as remedy to that cranky ol' tiredness. That's not the plan, Stan. No balm in Gilead. No salt in our sea. No healing. No exorcism. But think about what rest is. It is a remedy for tiredness, correct? It is a remedy for crankiness, remedy for problems, remedy for what my Mama used to say was "what ails you." It is short for restore or restoration, and God's plan from the beginning was to restore us to full communion with him once we fell in the Garden. Even God rested on the seventh day, you know.

Then, think about what is a good definition for peace. Some think that peace is the absence of conflict, but that's not true. Conflict will exist, in marriages, in professions, in even the things that give us the most joy. Conflict is what makes for good sporting games, good careers, good worship even. Without conflict, there is no victory. Therefore, peace -- the thing we long so desperately for I fear -- exists with conflict -- even perhaps because of conflict -- in the same way that we never knew what sin was till God gave us the Law. In the way the Law shines the light on the darkness of sin, conflict shines the spotlight on what peace is or what it can be. Conflict is to peace what the late Paul Harvey used to describe as "the rest of the story." The rest...get it?

In other words, peace is the result of the body resting -- in hope. Peace is a residue of the rest that is the remedy for tiredness, crankiness, problems, for what ails you.

When enemies surround you, the best we can do is let out bodies, our minds, our emotions, rest in hope. When illness comes, let our bodies rest in hope. When struggles, bills, oppression come, let  our spirits rest in hope. Does rest eliminate the problem? Nah, unfortunately the problem might still be waiting for you once you return from your rest. No, no, no. But a rested spirit, body, emotions mean our struggles with our struggles were dissipated for at least the moment, and we are much more able to deal with those struggles after resting than before. Hope is unseen victory but expected all the same.

Therefore, I believe, peace and rest are the same things ... stepping back from the issue and letting God step in and relieve us from the anxiety that grew around the spiritual joints like so much painful arthritis.

It reminds me greatly of one of my five top scriptures, from Paul's writings in a letter to Roman Christians:  "⁴ And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. ⁵ And this hope will not lead to disappointment." 

University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban (speaking of conflict in Louisiana), calls what he does with his teams "the process." Everything is about the process, from the first practice of the fall to the championship game of the winter. Do the process, focus on the process, do what your job is in the process and good to great things can happen.

This is the Christian process (or should be): Problems to endurance to character to hope. Seems like hope would be at the beginning to me, but that's not the way it is. All we can hope for is hope. Hope that is seen, Paul says, is not hope.

Rest in your hope, friends. May God's hope give you rest. Somewhere in there is peace. And it does not disappoint. Never does it disappoint.