I get a daily verse automatically sent to my inbox every morning from Bible Gateway. I find that the risk with having a verse in my inbox every morning is that the reading become rote and doesn't really infiltrate or affect my day. But some days, like today, the verses catch my attention and get me thinking.
It seems so simple. "Be joyful in hope." Surprisingly, of the three, this is probably what I struggle with most. I label myself as a realistic individual. I like to think of all of the potential outcomes and prepare myself for each. When something good happens, I immediately think about what will happen next or, even worse, what bad things happened along the way. Hope should be easy but, really, it can be a trap for my sinful mind. I can't tell you how many times something beautiful and amazing and hopeful has happened...and then I immediately desire more, more, more. One thing is rarely good enough.
I think that this commandment has another meaning too: don't lose faith. Even in situations where it seems there's no positive outcome, keep hoping. Trust in the Lord to make good out of every situation. And be joyful while you wait and hope to see how the Lord can use the big and the small to glorify Him. Rarely am I joyful in my hope in this way. I am typically impatient and ungrateful and selfish. I want the Lord to use all of the situations to benefit me. To glorify me. It's even harder to swallow the fact that many situations will not work out to make my life better or make me happy in some way, but for the good of someone near me. Or for the good of a perfect stranger. Or, if it is all about me, He uses situations to grow me. And growing pains are just that...painful. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that hope in and of itself can be difficult and being joyful throughout all of that hoping can be downright miserable. In comparison, the other two seem like a walk in the park on a sunny day. Funny, that, because those two sound deceptively simple as well.
