Captivated


Captivate - verb 

1. to attract and hold the attention or interest of, as by beauty or excellence; enchant
2. Obsolete. to capture; subjugate.

I don't remember when it happened, that I became "captivated by hope", but I remember how.

It began with a simple call from God, to devote a year to hope.  I would pray hopefully for the desire of my heart.  I would enlist friends to pray for this hope. One year.

At first it was exhilarating - to dare to imagine that God might say yes.

Then it was hard - to realize that in asking, I was submitting my hopes to God, and submission allows for the Master to say no.

Afterwards it was this crazy tug-of-war between giving up on caring what happened (it's easier that way) and this too-confident expectation, demanding that God give me what I wanted.

And then, near the end of the year, it was a challenge.  Did God even want me to keep hoping when my request seemed impossible?  I dared it.  Fulfill the year.  Really hope.  God was God, and if He said yes, no matter whether it was at the last second, He would accomplish His yes.  And He deserved my waiting on Him, whatever His answer.

Turns out the answer was no, at least mostly no.  So then there was, "Well, the year is over and I didn't get my heart's desire.  What now?"  God's reply?  "You learned about hope.  Keep hoping."

Now.  Hope is a lot of things.  There are different kinds of hope, so I've discovered.  There is the wishful-hope, like wishing that it would rain or wishing for curly hair.  There is hope in God's character: that He is good, that He is mighty, that He is loving.  That hope coincides with the personal hope because of God's promises to me: that I am chosen to be joint-heir with Christ, that He will return, that He grants wisdom to those who ask without doubting.  Then there is the hope in His word: what He has said, that He will perform.  That last kind of hope takes discernment.  And discernment is often a process.

I learned that hope's definition is synonymous with the quip about insanity: doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result.  Hope is patient, willing to wait until God acts or answers (even if His answer is to tell me to shift my hope).  Hope is humble.  Hope realizes that just as it was not my own strength that has done any good in me, so it is not my own strength that will get me any further.  And the same God who works in me is at work in people I love; I can't condemn them, because God changes hearts.  He grows things.  And what He does, does not fail; it prospers in all that He intends for it to do.

So it came that after months and months, I realized that it was impossible for me to stop hoping.  Not only for the original request.  Wherever I look now, I see hope.  In such dark and seemingly forsaken circumstances, I have gained confidence that we are not forsaken, that God is still there, and I will hope in Him.  I can't see the world any other way.

I've become burdened to be a voice for hope, to remind my friends that we have such a God, who is big enough, who looks on us and hears our cries.

Sometimes it is a burden, when I am weary and discouraged and would almost rather not be so emotionally invested.  Sometimes it is hard when I feel so alone in my hope, like everyone I know thinks I really am just crazy.  (I know how crazy it is.)  Sometimes it hurts, when I have hoped and my hope is disappointed, when people still suffer under sin and doubt and death.

But I cannot quit, and I do not really want to.  This hope casts me on God.  It makes me remember that He is.  He is why I live.  He is invested in this life.  He has called me to hope.  God has given me hope when I was empty.

Hope is beautiful.  Achingly yearning.  Climactic.  Epic.  Quiet and persistent.  As exciting as spring and babies and resurrection.

I am captivated by hope.

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