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As a person of faith, we can help and comfort people best when we embrace and share the principle that hope is a noun more than a verb.

An important relationship principle in today\\u2019s show

We talked in episodes 148 and 149 about what to say and not to say when our friends are going through a hard time in their life. I\\u2019ll have links to those episodes in the show notes. Today\\u2019s episode is about another important principle to remember in helping our friends who are dealing with difficulties in their life. Keep listening. It will help you, too.

An unspeakable tragedy

In episode 148 I mentioned the missionary who told Janet and me that the baby born to his son and daughter-in-law that morning was stillborn. A healthy heart suddenly stopped beating before birth. The doctors don\\u2019t know why. The whole family was in a state of shock and just devastated. The baby was to be our friend\\u2019s first grandchild.

We viewed the funeral service online from hundreds of miles away. It was hard to watch. All that heartache seeping out of the baby\\u2019s father who spoke of the overwhelmingly painful loss he and his wife had just suffered.

A week or so later our missionary friend\\u2019s wife texted to say \\u201cthese have been very hard days, some almost unbearable, but we are clinging to Jesus with everything we\\u2019ve got.\\u201d She followed this up with another text where she wrote,

Wisdom from a blog post

I spent some time on a website called \\u201cHope Mommies,\\u201d a ministry that focuses on moms who have lost babies/children. One of the blogs shared this:

\\u201cFriends sent puzzles and coloring books. Those things were all nice, but they didn\'t actually fill the time. Your mind is still free to think while completing a puzzle or coloring a picture. I wanted something to occupy my mind so time would pass. In these moments, the comment "time heals all wounds" was not helpful. It felt like time was not moving; it felt like I would never experience healing. The excruciating minutes would linger and linger. If time was my only hope, that felt cruel.

\\u201cBut thankfully time isn\'t where our hope lies. Our hope is in Christ Jesus. He met us in our pain and presented us with true peace, that transcends understanding (Philippians 4:7). It is not by the passage of time, but "by His wounds we are healed" (1 Peter 2). We don\'t have to wait. Even in the midst of our suffering, He offers us hope.

"And now, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in you." Psalm 39:7

Hope is a noun more than a verb

This blog post reminded me of a stark difference between people of faith and those who choose to make no room for God in their life. For people of faith, Hope is a noun. For everyone else, Hope is a verb.

People of faith understand that for us, hope is found in the person of Jesus Christ. He\\u2019s an anchor that\\u2019s rock solid. He\\u2019s something and someone that never changes. Jesus is a certainty. He\\u2019s a person we can cling to \\u201cwith everything we\\u2019ve got\\u201d as my missionary friend put it. Hope as a noun get\\u2019s us through our present difficulties. While Jesus hope awaits us in the future, it\\u2019s a source of strength to get us through our present difficulties

For everyone else, hope is uncertain, with no guarantees. It varies from person to person. Hope as a verb is inconsistent, subjective, and elusive. It\\u2019s about the future, with no help for the present. But for people of faith, hope is a noun more than a verb.

In my book THEM - The Richer Life Found in Caring for Others, I touch upon the questions people have about why God allows bad things to happen to good people. Here\\u2019s a brief excerpt:

The goodness of God

I don\\u2019t have an answer for these questions. All I know is that God is good, and I cling to this. It is my anchor. It is what gives me hope and what keeps me from going crazy. He is good when life is going well, and He is just as good when everything is not. The goodness of God is not defined or explained by the circumstances in which I find myself.

I also know that even if the worst happens to me here on earth, God will comfort me; He will be compassionate with me. He is the God of all comfort and the father of compassion. We can count on this for sure. Even if the worst happens, God can use it to draw us closer to Himself\\u2014if we let Him. He can use it to strengthen us. He may very well make us better people for it. Even if the worst happens, God can use what we go through for greater purposes and reasons than we can ever imagine.
(pages 116-1170

So what does all this mean for YOU?

For a person of faith, how we view Jesus is where the rubber hits the road in dealing with all that life throws at us. Do we know Jesus well enough to view him as an anchor, someone we can cling to when our world begins to unravel?

Here\\u2019s the main takeaway I hope you remember from today\\u2019s episode

As a person of faith, we can help and comfort people when we embrace and share the principle with others that for us, Hope is a noun more than a verb. And it can be the same for them, too.

Closing

As always, I\\u2019d love to hear any thoughts you have about today\\u2019s episode.

I hope your thinking was stimulated by today\\u2019s show, to both reflect and to act upon the great news of the Gospel that Jesus is our hope. Our only hope. Our relationship with him is the most important one we have It is one we were made for.

That\\u2019s it for today. In the meantime, spread a little joy in your relationships this week. Until we meet up again next time, goodbye for now.

Related resources you may want to check out

149: What Do I Say to Them?
148: What Not to Say When Bad Things Happen to Good People
139: Why Should I Listen to This Podcast?

THEM - The Richer Life Found in Caring for Others

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