Hope is Not a Wish
Hope is not a wish.
My brave broken-hearted life has taught me that hope is not pretty and involves gutty vulnerable me. It is not this ethereal platitude which is popular everywhere.
Optimism is you believe things in the world will turn out just fine, it just does. Optimists see the glass as half full. Hope asks how can I fill the glass full? It involves gutty vulnerable me.
St. Augustine described hope this way, “Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.”
Do you see how anger and courage are a part of hope? When hope is a wish, you don’t have to feel anything. Especially anger and courage. When life has broken you, you are afraid to feel anger. And courage is just too scary because it involves vulnerability.
When life has broken you, you’d rather not feel at all. So you keep hope as a wish and offload life to God. Hopelessness shuts off these emotions. Easy-buttoning to God protects me from these emotions. Wishes keep you safe from disappointment because you don’t have to be emotionally involved.
Truth is, all emotions lead us to God.
From a scientific perspective, hope is not wishful thinking or blind optimism. “Instead, hope is a goal-oriented mindset that involves setting objectives, identifying pathways to achieve them, and maintaining the willpower to persevere. This definition, developed by psychologist Charles R. Snyder in the early 1990s, has become the foundation for hope theory in psychological research. Snyder explains that the science of hope comprises three core components:
- Goals that become clear, achievable objectives that provide direction and purpose.
- Pathways that serve as strategies or routes developed to reach these goals.
- Willpower (i.e., agency) that maps to the determination and motivation required to pursue goals and adhere to established pathways.”
https://scienceforthechurch.org/2024/12/17/from-bethlehem-to-the-heart-a-pathway-of-hope
This maps perfectly from Dr. Brene Brown’s more famous and later research. She found that hope is a combination of: setting goals; having the tenacity and perseverance to pursue those goals; believing that worthiness is your birthright so something good is going to happen to you.
Simply defined, hope is Plan B. I have the ability to make a Plan B and this is where my hope grows.
Plan A has crushed me at times. Things were supposed to go this one way but it didn’t happen. I can wallow (I have). I can be angry at God (I have). I can turn that anger outward to many people (I have).
But when I do make the decision to make a Plan B, it is then that I have found hope. I have felt my anger and I have found my courage to move me to believe that I am worthy of a different outcome.
Plan B has also crushed me but I have chosen to set goals, my tenacity gives me room to change and revise those goals because deep down I know I’m worthy of having something good happen to me.
I loved my Plan A. I loved my Plan B. I love my Plan M and am hoping. Curiosity has me engaged. I still have hope because I still believe in the larger story.
That is hope. Now make your Plan B because you are worthy of something good happening to you.
Questions for Reflection:
- Are you starting to see how hope involves you?
- Are you feeling a tinge of vulnerability?
- Are you also feeling a tinge of possibility? Especially if you have trust issues with God?
Brenda is a pastor, author, speaker, wife, mom and Oma. Brenda writes at www.Bravester.com. Her second published book is a Bible study with video about trust issues with God. You can learn more about that at www.trustissueswithGod.com.
