Hope Never Comes From a Leprechaun

Some days we feel like someone who was tricked by a leprechaun into taking fool’s gold, only to find ourselves with an empty black pot.

Hope is not something we naturally think about building. We can find or lose hope. Hope can be destroyed or recovered. But hope is usually built. And that is precisely the problem.

We believe hope is akin to treasure at the end of a rainbow, as if some mythical munchkin will say, “Fresh out of gold. How ’bout some hope instead?” Hope must be built if we intend to retain it in our lives.

Part of the reason we expect hope to come like a winning lottery ticket is because we misunderstand what hope actually is. Hope in its purest form is a Christian concept. It is described best in Romans 5:5 –

Hope is grounded in the love of God for us. We have the proof of God’s love in the person of the Holy Spirit within us. There are moments in our life when we understand afresh that the Creator of this complex and enormous universe loves little ol’ me and little ol’ you. These times should stir up hope within us.

But there are days when this quiet confirmation of God’s advocacy for us is not enough. We feel like someone who was tricked by a leprechaun into taking fool’s gold, only to find ourselves with an empty black pot. We have pain that won’t end, a health condition that just won’t go away. In these moments, we want to cry out — O God, why have you forsaken me?

There are moment when we have known the love and presence of God, without a shadow of a doubt. But the dark seasons can wipe those memory away.

And this is why we must build hope. We must have a reservoir of hope during dry seasons. It is possible to develop habits in our lives that will give us strength when we are weary, so we can live another day.

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