How can we balance Hope with Acceptance when facing the impossible?

How can we balance Hope with Acceptance when facing the impossible?

All the King’s Horses – Finding Purpose and Hope in Brokenness and Impossibility, excerpt from pp 46-49 http://www.amazon.com/dp/1629984191

We were offered no reason to hope that our son could “come back” from his devastating brain-injury, but we were given many medical reasons why the damage was irreversible. The consensus was that Bryson would never walk, speak intelligibly, and would be educable to only a very rudimentary level. Tremendous pressure was on us to give up hope, and some well-meaning professionals informed us that we were investing in false hope …

As Christians, we can feel pressure to move prematurely into the “acceptance” mode before our situation is even clearly understood, thinking that this is what honors God. We can then tie up all the loose ends, nice and tidy, assuring ourselves that we have humbly obeyed God by “accepting” our circumstances. Don’t hear me saying that we are not to surrender to the Lord in the face of difficult trials, or that we are to refuse to bear the cross that He requires us to bear. The Bible teaches unequivocally that we must surrender our lives fully to Jesus Christ, and that our surrender must always include our willingness to say “Your will be done Lord, not mine.”

But we need to be careful. There is a danger of surrendering when the Lord requires us to battle our way through a trial. Our “surrender” can look pretty spiritual, but in reality our choice to accept our difficult trial might be more cowardly than holy.

Steve Brown addresses the issue of acceptance in saying:. “Whenever something comes into your life that you cannot change or avoid, accept it as coming from the hand of your loving Father.” However, he also addresses the necessity to fight when the Lord lays a battle before us.

“…The Bible is not a passive book. Scripture challenges us to run the race, to fight the fight, to wrestle with angelic powers (1 Cor. 9:24, 27; Eph. 6:12). The ‘let go and let God’ philosophy may be good in some situations, but in others it is absolutely wrong. We need to be still sometimes, but sometimes we simply need to get busy and do what needs doing…There are, of course, times when you can do nothing more … However, you must be very sure there is nothing more you can do before you decide not to act.”

Margaret Clarkson says something similar in her book, Grace Grows Best in Winter:

“To those hedged in by illness or crushing sorrow, to find peace is literally essential to survival. Without it, in many cases, life simply could not be tolerated … ‘Just how much of this do I accept, and from how much do I seek to free myself?’ The answer would seem to be something of a dichotomy: ‘You accept everything, even the worst, completely and permanently; and then you use every possible resource, both human and spiritual, to effect a solution.’”

Nowhere in the Bible are we instructed to avoid necessary warfare and conflict in life, or to retreat into false modes of “acceptance.” There are times when, even if it is with our teeth chattering and knees knocking, we must engage the enemy in battle …

Furthermore, no one has ever satisfactorily explained to me the concept of “false hope.” Isn’t the term “false hope” an oxymoron? The Bible reveals something intriguing, yet profoundly simple, about hope. It is so simple, in fact, that it is easy to miss. Listen:

“…hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.” Romans 8:24-25

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” Hebrews 11:1

Duh! How simple! How could I have missed this? Since we couldn’t see any reason to hope, the last thing in the world we should do is give up hope. Circumstances that appear hopeless are precisely what God designed hope to be for! Of course! If you can see the solution to your problem, if you have it all figured out, then you are disqualified as a candidate to hope. You may have a plan, even a pending resolution to your problem. Praise God for that. But until then, when we have no apparent reason to hope, God asks us persevere in hope.

G. K. Chesterton embellished this point:

“As long as matters are really hopeful, hope is mere flattery or platitude. It is only when everything is hopeless that hope begins to be a strength at all. Like all the Christian virtues, it is as unreasonable as it is indispensable.”

… Hope placed in God is the great equalizer for all hopeless situations. But remember, hope has nothing to do with whether you feel hopeful. Our emotions will almost always point us to despair when things are bleak. God designed hope to be an indispensable ally precisely when we see and feel nothing to be hopeful about, when our emotions plead with us to give up and give in to despair.

… we must stop thinking of hope as a substance that can be placed in a test tube to be analyzed. We must think instead of what, or more precisely, to Whom hope points toward. Biblical hope points us to Jesus Christ, whose resources toward us through His Spirit are immeasurable and invincible over every last foe we will ever have to face here. Even the foe of death.

… when you’ve run completely out of options; when it is clear for all the world to see that your life has been decimated, thwarted to the point of being laughable that you could ever recover in any meaningful way, or see any good come from your impossible situation, then my “poor” friends, you are blessed (Matthew 5:3-4). You are God’s candidate to walk in hope.

If what I have just said is not true, then you are a fool to be reading this book. But if what I am saying holds water, then you don’t have to give up and wallow in defeat. You have an important decision to make. If you choose to trust fully in the God of hope, He will see to it that you are filled with all the resources at His disposal. Without minimizing your sorrows, your grief, or the impossible nature of your problems, suffice it to say that your hopeless situation is no match for the mighty power available to you from the God of hope.

“Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13

“This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope. The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.
Lamentations 3:21-23

“I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord In the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the Lord.” Psalm 27:13-14