What is hope? And how do we teach hope to our children?
Both of these are challenging questions. Let’s start with defining hope!
The dictionary definition of ‘hope’ speaks of anticipation and desire, and wanting something to happen. However, if we speak of ‘hope’ from a faith perspective, it is something more. The hope of which we speak is not like writing a wish list for our birthdays or a letter to Santa and then desiring or expecting to receive at least some of what was on the list.
Hope, within the Christian faith, goes much deeper. It is not a wish list of expectations, but rather a sense of possibility that carries us through tough and challenging times. In Christian scripture, we are told to place our hope in God. We are encouraged to find our hope in Jesus. The apostle Paul tells us that such hope will not disappoint us.
The hope we talk about in relation to our faith is not about having something pinned down and certain. Paul also says, “Hope that is seen is not hope. Who hopes for what is seen?” The writer of the letter to Hebrews goes further and tells us that hope is “the assurance of things unseen.”
So how can we be assured by what we can’t see? How can our hope only be possible when we base it on things that are unseen? Strange, isn’t it, but that is how our faith defines hope.
Hope pulls us out of ourselves and our own situation. Hope connects us to a bigger picture, to something more than what we can see in our lives around us. In Paul’s beautiful passage about love in 1 Corinthians 13, he tells us that faith, hope and love are gifts from God, and the greatest of these is love. Yet, hope is there, as a gift from God.
We don’t hope because we have proof. We hope because we have faith – faith in a loving God who is active in our world. We hope because we know Jesus, and have seen the hope with which Jesus lived his life and faced his death, the hope that came with his resurrection.
Hope is not about certainty. Hope is not about getting things done our way. Hope is about entering into the energy and love of God, and praying, “Not my will, but Thy Will be done, o God.” Hope is learning to trust in God, and then deepening that trust in God. Hope is a journey of growing in our relationship with God, through prayer, through reading the Bible, and through worshiping with a community of faith.
So how do we help our children have hope? And our children need hope! It deeply disturbs me to see the amount of anxiety and alarm among our young people, not to mention adults. Too often people are turning to medications, street drugs and alcohol in order to deal with this anxiety and alarm. Sometimes prescription medication is needed.
However, we need to be offering the hope of faith to our children and our society. We need to be offering the warmth of Christian community to support people of all ages through the distress they are feeling. We have the most amazing gift – HOPE – and we need to offer it.
So how do we teach hope to our children? Four things:
1. Our children need to know that we love them, unconditionally. They need to know that they are invited to exist in our presence and that nothing can break the relationship, ever! They will find the assurance of hope in our unconditional love!
2. Children need to know that there is futility in life – we can’t always have what we want. It may seem odd, but in order to learn about hope, we need to know about futility. Our children need us to say, “No,” to some of the things they want to buy or do, when we don’t feel that those things are in their best interest. Our job as parents isn’t to make our children happy every second by giving them things. Our job is to love them, and sometimes that means saying, No, and holding them as they cry. Tears of futility lead to hope!
3. Our children need to see us deepening our own faith, and opening our hearts to the gift of hope that God offers. They need to see us praying, reading scripture, and worshipping. They need to know how important those practices are to our lives. They need to see those spiritual practices help us draw nearer to God, and light up our faces with hope.
4. Children need a community of faith that holds the hope for them, and loves them as they are. We all need that community of faith, where the elders delight in the joy and laughter and noise of the children, and the children offer hugs and smiles to their elders. Hope grows in community when we care for one another and value one another.
Hope! It is one of the themes of the Advent season. It is something so needed in our world today. Five minutes into a newscast and one can easily lose hope. Yet, there is hope to be had in our world. Yes, we need to work hard to address climate change. Yes, we need to feed those who are hungry, support those who are abused, provide housing for the homeless. And, YES, there is hope to be had in this world!
We place our hope in God. We find our hope in Jesus.
Our hope is not found in things that are seen and proven.
Our hope comes from our relationship with a God, who invites us to work together, with God and with each other, for the healing of the world.
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