Add Water and Stir :: The Garden

THE SUBSTANCE OF THINGS HOPED FOR...
By Thea Rashad

Hope is hard. Let me say that again. Hope is hard. But, it’s unpopular to admit
there are times when your doubt outweighs your belief.

Hope sounds very nice in the lines of a Hallmark card, a Sunday sermon or an
invigorating motivational speech. But, what few people talk about-- let alone
admit-- is the difficult process of being hopeful when everything around you
suggests it’s the stuff of rainbows. Kermit called it a vision, only an illusion.

Why is that? Why is it easier to sometimes not have hope than to have it? It’s
the ultimate spiritual WWE matchup. Perhaps it’s the dread of potential
disappointment. We can’t be upset over something we didn’t expect. We can’t be
beat if we don’t get in the ring. Yet we can even have high hopes in one area of
our life and none in another. But,why? Clearly, that’s a contradiction in faith. And
the Bible teaches us that “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence
of things not seen.”(Hebrews 11:1)

If faith is the foundation then the pillars are both the substance and evidence
upon which our deepest God-given desires rest upon. If we don’t fully
comprehend the substance of what we hope for or defend the evidence of what
has yet to come, then how can we claim to have faith? No wonder, hope is hard.
Webster’s Dictionary offers many definitions of the word derived from the Latin
term substantia. It’s considered the essence or essential nature of something, an
important characteristic or simply put, God.

That all sounds very smart. But, loftiness aside, what is the substance, the
essence, the fundamental characteristic of something you've hoped for? Think
hard about that one thing you truly desire. In fact, step away from this and come
back tomorrow when you have an answer. What is the substance of that palpable
longing?

The first word that came to my mind was love. Something so deeply hoped for
has to be rooted in some form of love. Next, the history or life experiences that
explain why that is the thing hoped for, followed by the dream, the visual image of
what we want the outcome to look like. Faith is love, your story, your vision.

That’s only half of the equation, though. The real brain teaser is that other word:
evidence. What is the evidence of the outcome you can’t see? Evidence is
tangible. It’s a sign, a concrete indicator. How can you have proof of something
that you can’t even see or rather foresee?

The only thing I could think of when I grappled with this question was my
personal testimony. In other words, God’s track record in my life and the lives of
others I had witnessed. After all, when prosecutors and defense attorneys build
their cases, they look to witnesses to share events and details that have already
come to pass. They offer a jury proof of what jurors can’t see.

When it comes to faith, we’re the jury. For some, God is guilty of not delivering
on His promises. For others, it’s like the old adage. He may not come when you
want Him, but he sure is on time. It’s the space in between these two that
admittedly, I occupy frequently and struggle with in some areas of my life. They’re
the corners of your existence where you have your deepest insecurities and fears
stowed away.

The substance and the evidence--they’re the two things we’re suppose to rely
upon. But, hope is hard. Fortunately, it is the stuff of rainbows. The same stuff
as the biblical story of Noah and the Arc, a metaphor for how God keeps His
promises.

Like weightlifting, holding hope is spiritually strenuous. You have to know when to
hold it, when to put it down and pick it back up, and when to let someone else
hold it for you.

Did you know sunlight has to hit raindrops at just the precise moment and the
exact angle to create a rainbow? What’s more, all of the colors reflected in a
raindrop are not visible to the human eye. Our faith has to be just as deliberate
despite the limitation of what we can see. Maybe Kermit’s rainbow connection is
somewhere between doubt and hope. And I hope you find it.

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"Like weightlifting,
holding hope is
spiritually
strenuous. You
have to know when
to hold it, when to
put it down and
pick it back up,
and when to let
someone else hold
it for you."

“Why are there so many songs about rainbows and what's on the other side?
Rainbows are visions, but only illusions, and rainbows have nothing to hide.
So we've been told and some choose to believe it.
I know they're wrong, wait and see.
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection.
The lovers, the dreamers and me.”—Kermit the Frog