What is hope?

One thing I’ve been trying to do is to find synonymous words that allow me to see really important things in different, equally true ways. For instance, when I think about “love,” the word that most comes to mind is “affectionate commitment.” Whenever I read about the love of God, I assume that I’m reading about his affectionate commitment to me. I know it’s not a perfect synonym (who could ever come up with a perfect synonym for the love of God?), but it has done my imagination and my soul a lot of good.

Similarly, I have a synonym for hope.
Hope for me is “a vision of God’s future.”

For example:

Then the LORD will create over the whole site of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud by day, and smoke and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory there will be a canopy. There will be a booth for shade by day from the heat, and for a refuge and a shelter from the storm and rain. (Isaiah 4:5-6 ESV)

The entirety of Isaiah 4 is 7 verses of prose. And if you read it in its context, it will and should feel completely anomalous. It’s a striking interruption to very poetic, lofty imagery describing God’s heartbreak on account of His own people’s betrayal and adultery.

But this interruption is hope. In the midst of a beautifully tragic account of God’s sorrow and anger, He chooses to look ahead to what he certainly will do and create for His people. As he pronounces just and deserved punishment for the culture of estrangement that His people have chosen and taught and multiplied, He also pronounces a vision of the future He’s creating…

…and there’s a canopy. Over the future that he is making, there’s a canopy.

It’s like he’s planning a big party, and we know that we’re invited and that He’s going to do something for us at the party, but we don’t know what. He’s even gotten us to help him plan the party, but we don’t know exactly what we’re planning. But then we show up, and we realize that it’s our wedding. He’s been planning our wedding the whole time. And not just that, but he’s planned our marriage as well. He’s been building and making things for the party that will last far beyond the party, that will be just as good years and years and years later.

There will be a day, and we will be Your bride again.

—————

We are dissatisfied
And the blood on our hands is from feeding our
Our insatiable desires

We are so deceived
‘Cause the pride in our hearts tells us
We can have whatever we want, whenever we can

But we will see your justice
We will know your holiness
You will cleanse us of our violence

There will be a day
We will be your bride again

And you will be with us
In the heat of the day, in the storm and the rain
You will be our hiding place

And you will be with us
And you will create
The cloud and the flame, for the holy ones that remain

But we will see your justice
We will know your holiness
As you free us from our arrogance

There will be a day
We will be your bride again