95: Hope Grows

I don’t know about you, but I am typically not one to plant a literal seed. In fact, I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve actually grown a plant from the ground up—a couple times in elementary school, maybe once or twice for a class in middle school, and of course, my experience I shared with the Venus fly trap seeds way back in remind{h}er 11.

I have high admiration and respect for friends of mine who choose to grow things from scratch. The time, the effort, the intentionality blows me away and, honestly, puts me to shame. Because for me, if I’m going to exercise my green thumb at all, I prefer the much easier option of visiting a local garden store or nursery and purchasing plants or flowers that have already sprouted and grown a bit. Then, I can simply transplant them into the ground or some sort of flower pot and keep them alive for as long as possible.

To me, it feels safer that way. Less of a risk. Easier to trust that growth is possible because I can already see it happening. If it’s already growing, I’ve got a head start. Rather than dig around in the dirt, drop in a seed, and then worry and wait for a sprout, I get to begin a few steps ahead, that much closer to the bloom. Given the option between a packet of seeds and an already maturing plant, I’ll choose the plant every time. I want buds in an instant, blooms on-demand.

And sometimes {really, most times} I find I want to experience hope in a similar way. I want someone to hand me a bouquet of hope in full bloom, something I can point to and easily say, “There’s the beauty. There’s the color. There’s the life.” Like a bunch of hope-filled balloons, I want to grab hold and immediately float above the struggle, the disappointment, the heartache, the fear. I want hope in an instant, hope on-demand.

And yet, if you’re like me, our experience of hope isn’t always that easy or care-free. Hope doesn’t always make a bright, grand entrance; hope often starts small, sneaks in the side door and, rather than flipping a switch to turn on the light, it quietly keeps us company in the dark.

All that to say, one thing I’m learning is that hope doesn’t happen all at once; it grows.

Here’s what I mean. In Romans 5:3-5, we read:

3 …[W]e also boast in our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Even in this passage, hope is not immediate; there’s progression. With God’s help, hope is produced by character, and character is produced by endurance, and endurance is produced by affliction. And the key here, at least for me, is that it all begins when we boast in our afflictions.

Now, when Paul uses the word “boast” here, I don’t know that he means we’re supposed to actually brag about our afflictions, highlighting them, trying to seek pity or attention or admiration. Suffering doesn’t need to be overemphasized. Instead, I think Paul is saying that our suffering isn’t meant to be bypassed, avoided or downplayed. We need to pay attention to it. Face it. Experience it.

Sometimes as followers of Jesus, it feels like having hope means we’re supposed to put on a brave face, force ourselves into celebration or positivity, and skim over what feels hard. In a way, it seems disingenuous and inauthentic. But hope—real, deep, enduring hope—isn’t just frivolous optimism or daydreaming or wishful thinking. It’s much weightier than that. In order for hope to endure, it needs to take root. And in order for it to take root, its seeds need to be buried.

If you’re listening in real time, a few days ago we celebrated the resurrection of Jesus on Easter Sunday—the ultimate celebration of the ultimate reason for hope. But even Easter didn’t happen in an instant.

In her book, Learning to Walk in the Dark, Barbara Brown Taylor highlights this truth. As she reflects on Jesus being buried in a small cave, she writes,

“By all accounts, a stone blocked the entrance to the cave so that there were no witnesses to the resurrection. Everyone who saw the risen Jesus saw him after. Whatever happened in the cave happened in the dark. As many years as I have been listening to Easter sermons, I have never heard anyone talk about that part. Resurrection is always announced with Easter lilies, the sound of trumpets, bright streaming light. But it did not happen that way. If it happened in a cave, it happened in complete silence, in absolute darkness, with the smell of damp stone and dug earth in the air… new life starts in the dark. Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb, it starts in the dark.”

Now don’t get me wrong. I love the pomp and circumstance—the joy and brightness—of an Easter worship service. Give me all the lilies, all the people, all the alleluias, all the “He is risen indeeds.” It is good for us to worship and offer our very best to God. Celebration should not be avoided.

But neither should hardship. Because it is in the dark, in the fear, in the grief, where hope begins. And we have permission to believe and live like that is true.

We can weep, and have hope. We can be angry, and have hope. We can feel lonely, and tired, and discouraged and still have hope. We can lean into the difficulty because we know in our bones that even death itself is not the end of the story. In our darkest moments, we believe that a seed is being planted, that hope is being cultivated, and that the growth of that hope will not disappoint us.

And as we read in Psalm 126:5, we will find that

…[T]hose who sow in tears
    reap with shouts of joy.

As it grows, we will come to know a hope like the one Jan Richardson describes in her poem, Blessing of Hope. She writes,

So may we know

the hope
that is not just
for someday
but for this day—
here, now,
in this moment
that opens to us:
hope not made
of wishes
but of substance,
hope made of sinew
and muscle
and bone,
hope that has breath
and a beating heart,
hope that will not
keep quiet
and be polite,
hope that knows
how to holler
when it is called for,
hope that knows
how to sing
when there seems
little cause,
hope that raises us
from the dead—
not someday
but this day,
every day,
again and
again and
again.

Today, remember that hope grows. May we choose to cultivate a hope that is deeply rooted, a hope that can’t be shaken, a hope that acts as an anchor for our souls {Hebrews 6:19}. May we choose the seeds, and as our own hope grows, may it also spread as we seek to be the people God calls us to be.