"And patience, experience; and experience, hope:"
Romans 5:4
The verses right before this talk about faith, grace, peace, and tribulations, so if you want the whole equation, you should read the surrounding verses. I liked this little part though because it talks about how patience leads to experience, and experience leads to hope... and although all the rest of it is also important, this part struck me, because I think that hope is something that we really do learn over time, and probably in no other way is it quite as strong and enduring and natural as when we learn, through experience, to make it a foundational principle of our lives.
When we're young we often are more shocked by setbacks. We run into an obstacle and it almost offends us because "hey, this is me walking here." Tragedy is something that happens to other people. We expect good, not really because we have that experiential hope and faith, but because we're a little sheltered and have little experience, and our expectations are high because we don't think that we can fail, and we expect the world to conform to our needs.
As we grow, we run into more things that make us rethink our lives, our choices, our priorities, and our beliefs... and it's tough, but those tribulations teach us a lot, and we become more experienced in how life works, and how God works with us. And if we're working with God and paying attention, that leads us to hope, because we learn that good always follows bad, that God doesn't write tragedies, that no matter where we are, God is reaching out to us and offering to help us and lift us. We learn that we get to choose our reactions and our emotions and our focus, and that we can infuse our lives with goodness just as easily as with badness. Most of all, we learn that God is there, listening to us, loving us, and that if we reach out to him, he will help us. And that, in our darkest times, is what can get us through.
Today, let's try to latch onto that connection between experience and hope. Let's look back on our lives and really see it, and know that God will always help us out of the potholes and get us started again... just as he has in the past. He loves us, and if we keep working at it with him, we'll get better and better--hope forever. :)
Romans 5:4
The verses right before this talk about faith, grace, peace, and tribulations, so if you want the whole equation, you should read the surrounding verses. I liked this little part though because it talks about how patience leads to experience, and experience leads to hope... and although all the rest of it is also important, this part struck me, because I think that hope is something that we really do learn over time, and probably in no other way is it quite as strong and enduring and natural as when we learn, through experience, to make it a foundational principle of our lives.
When we're young we often are more shocked by setbacks. We run into an obstacle and it almost offends us because "hey, this is me walking here." Tragedy is something that happens to other people. We expect good, not really because we have that experiential hope and faith, but because we're a little sheltered and have little experience, and our expectations are high because we don't think that we can fail, and we expect the world to conform to our needs.
As we grow, we run into more things that make us rethink our lives, our choices, our priorities, and our beliefs... and it's tough, but those tribulations teach us a lot, and we become more experienced in how life works, and how God works with us. And if we're working with God and paying attention, that leads us to hope, because we learn that good always follows bad, that God doesn't write tragedies, that no matter where we are, God is reaching out to us and offering to help us and lift us. We learn that we get to choose our reactions and our emotions and our focus, and that we can infuse our lives with goodness just as easily as with badness. Most of all, we learn that God is there, listening to us, loving us, and that if we reach out to him, he will help us. And that, in our darkest times, is what can get us through.
Today, let's try to latch onto that connection between experience and hope. Let's look back on our lives and really see it, and know that God will always help us out of the potholes and get us started again... just as he has in the past. He loves us, and if we keep working at it with him, we'll get better and better--hope forever. :)
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