Hope and the Rock

This morning, I was reminded of something a little 6-year-old girl recently said to me: "Hope is the most beautiful word!"

What makes that such a touching statement is that she was a participant in a program at our church for children of divorce. (It's an amazing ministry of healing and hope called DC4K, and it's nationwide- http://www.dc4k.com/.)

She wasn't talking about hope as if it were a present that she'd asked for but wasn't sure she'd get. We were talking about the hope of the New Testament. It is more like “confidence” or “eager expectation” than "unfounded optimism". The Greek word is “elpis”, the root of which is “elpo”: “to anticipate with pleasure”.

One set of notes I read called “hope” a “blessed assurance”. That, of course, got me singing. I found an old hymnal and looked up “Blessed Assurance”. The lyricist, Fanny Crosby, was, in effect, saying, “Hey, listen up! This is my story! I have inherited salvation because I am now God’s child! He has redeemed me! I have been born again and washed in His blood. Jesus is mine! What a blessed assurance! I have been given a taste of God’s glory! My soul is at rest and I am singing with joy!”

What incredible words! And to think I had sung that song a hundred times without ever really hearing and understanding it. I hungered for more, wondering what other songs might open to me. I turned back one page in the hymnal and there was “My Hope is Built”. The refrain is, “On Christ the solid rock I stand; All other ground is sinking sand, All other ground is sinking sand.”

Immediately, I envisioned a sea in which there were hundreds of people. I looked around me at their faces, because all that was visible above the water were their heads. They looked so frightened and exhausted, and I realized they were treading water. I, however, did not feel such strain and I realized it was because I was standing on a rock. I called to the woman closest to me, “Just relax and put your feet down!” She cried back, “I tried to, but it’s quicksand and it will pull me under!” And then I realized that I had something she did not. And I told her that my feet were secure and I called her to come to The Rock.

The third verse to “My Hope is Built” says that His oath, covenant and blood “support me in the whelming flood” and that when everything around my soul “gives way”, He is then “all my hope and stay”.

I am reminded that I am called to stand firm on that Rock and be a lighthouse. I am to be a beacon of hope, of confidence, of blessed assurance. I am to call out to the drowning, to share what I have found: “Here is safety! Here is rest! Come! It is for you, too!”