Unintended, Yet Unfair Assumptions We Make in Christian Circles

 I was working on a Bible study recently and ended up very frustrated by one of the questions. I had to chose not to get hung up on the way I was completely left out of the majority of the question in how it was worded. 

And it's far from the first time that has happened. It has happened over and over again.

The question in this study asked you to fill in the blanks for a couple of prompts. The first blank was about childhood. 

No problem.

The second blank, which I, perhaps naively, expected to be about young adulthood or adulthood in general, was specifically about marriage or a dating relationship. 

In just a few words on a page, I felt immediately excluded. I was frustrated. Angry even.

Why?

Because, once again, I was left feeling like I'm on the outside of the norm in Christian circles. Once again, I was in a situation where there was an assumption that everyone participating was married or in a serious dating relationship moving toward marriage. 

Once again, being single had no space. 

Now, before you tell me I'm over-reacting to a single question . . . let me remind you that this isn't a one off thing I deal with. Much of my world, especially the church world, treats me differently because I'm still single at almost 40 years old. I'm regularly ignored in sermons at church. I'm regularly left out of ideas for workshops or seminars that inevitably focus on marriage and parenting - or getting ready for these things if you're not already. 

I'm regularly told I don't fit in the norms of Christian circles.

Put yourself in my shoes for a bit and then look at this question again. It quickly becomes one more place where I'm put on the outside of the norm - where I'm different and don't fit.

I don't think this is done intentionally or maliciously. But, that does little to change the hurt it causes. Just because someone didn't remember that at least some of those working through the study would be single and wrote a question they weren't even aware would leave people out, doesn't mean it didn't hurt - that it doesn't hurt every time. It doesn't mean I didn't feel rejected again. And this is far from the only Bible study where I've had it come up.

So, what do we do?

We speak up and we listen to each other - really listen to hear what people are saying, not what we want to hear.

Those of us who are single need to keep telling people about how this unintentional, and at least sometimes, unfair, speech hurts. We have to tell of the pain, the frustration, the anger, the feelings of exclusion and rejection. Even if it feels like we're a broken record, repeating the same things over and over.

And we all need to learn to listen to each other. We need to listen to and try to understand the hurt. We need to listen to and try to understand the apologies and the questions from people who didn't know.

Overflowing with Hope

 Can we overflow with hope?

Paul wasn't done talking about hope to the Romans in chapter 8. He references it at least twice more before the end of the book.

Romans 12:12 says:

"Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer."

At first I found it a little strange that all of these were put together. But, I think they actually often go together in life.

Hope is often challenged by our circumstances. But it's something we can still have. As we keep praying and seeking God through all of the challenging things life brings our way, our hope can remain and we can find joy.

That brings me to one more reference to hope. Romans 15:13 says:

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit who is in you."

Hope isn't something we have to try to come up with on our own. That's a relief. Because I'd have very little hope most of the time if it all depended on me.

We serve a God of hope and He has given us the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit fills us with hope.

Our job is to choose to trust.

That's what makes hope feel hard so often. We don't trust easily. We don't want to trust anyone or anything but ourselves.

For hope to live in us and overflow from us, we have to choose to trust God daily - sometimes minute-by-minute.

Where are you placing your trust?

Do you choose to trust God daily, so that you can be filled to overflowing with hope?

Hope for the Future

 What is hope for?

As we continue to read Paul's writing about hope in Romans, we move into one of my favourite chapters in Scripture. I regularly go back to Romans 8 to be reminded of the incredible truths in this chapter. 

But there is a section of this chapter that I have spent less time on. They're the verses not highlighted or underlined - or, they were before I really took the time to understand the hope they talk about.

Romans 8:22-25 says:

"We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit,, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes  for what they already have? But if we hope  for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently."

Paul writes that the hope we're holding onto has a future focus - an eternal focus. That's what gets us through when life gets hard. We know there's something coming that's worth the struggle now.

The challenge is how easily we forget this. We get caught up in our earthly circumstances and that's all we see. And we lost our hope.

We have to remember to lift our eyes off our circumstances. To set them on what is coming. To set them on eternity with Jesus.

When I think about this challenge, I remember another conversation I had with my Grandma. This one didn't come on the golf course. It came in a few short minutes before church on a Sunday morning.

I don't remember when we had this conversation - I'd actually forgotten about it until I was studying what Scripture had to say about hope. I know this conversation was a few years before she ended up in long term care, but well after Parkinson's disease had made her require a wheelchair for much of life. She was waiting for the service to start and for my Grandpa to be finished greeting people and come to sit with her.

She told me quite honestly how frustrating it was to her to be stuck wherever her wheelchair got parked and have to wait for people to come over to her. How frustrating the limited mobility, even at home, was. But, then she began to talk about her hope for eternity. That she knew a time was coming when she would no longer be limited.

I missed the significance of those words at the time, but they hit me as I was studying this passage. My Grandma was groaning as she struggled on this earth and waited for what she knew was coming. She was hoping for what was to come in the midst of a challenging disease that was slowly stealing her independence. And, although she would tell you she wasn't always good at waiting patiently, there was a grace to how she waited and held onto the hope of eternity.

It challenges me about where I'm looking. 2021 was a hard one for me and I struggled to hold onto hope. I see now, just how important it is to lift our eyes if we're going to hold onto hope.

Where are you looking for hope?

Where are you placing your hope?

Does the place you're looking for it need to change?

Hope & Faith

 As I've kept studying hope, I kept being drawn back to one particular book of Scripture. The book of Romans has a lot to say about hope.

It doesn't take Paul long to start pointing toward our need for hope. Although the word hope doesn't appear until chapter 4, everything up to then points to our need for hope. 

As Paul outlines the fallenness of people, the sinful choices they have made, he is making a case for something. Even as Paul moves to talk about God's faithfulness to us, he's laying the groundwork for hope and its importance in our lives.

Abraham is widely remembered in Scripture and in our conversations for his faith, but alongside that comes hope. Romans 4:18 says:

"Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as had been said to him, 'So shall your offspring be'."

From and earthly perspective, Abraham having children and being the father of many nations wasn't possible. These words came when "his body was as good as dead" and "Sarah's womb was also dead." (Romans 4:19). Yes, Abraham still had hope that God could do it.

After reading this about Abraham, we see Paul move into talking about hope specifically. Romans 5:1-5 says:

"Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith in this grace in which we know stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us."

This makes sense with hope being "a characteristic of genuine faith in God" (Bridgeway Bible Dictionary), as I wrote about last week. And Abraham's story as recalled in Romans 4 is an example of this.

Hope is not in the things of this world. It is in God. It it in His promises. In His glory.

The hard part of all of this is that hope often grows most in the hard times of life - it's also when it is most challenged. That's when we're looking for something more, something beyond what this world offers. Because know so much of this world disappoints us. We put our hope in something on earth and it fails us.

But, Romans 5 tells us that when our hope is in God's glory, it doesn't put us to shame. Other translations say hope does not disappoint. Hope in God is something that won't fail us.

As William Barclay writes:

"When a man's hope is in God it cannot turn to dust and ashes. When a man's hope is in God it cannot be disappointed. When a man's hope is in the love of God it cannot be an illusion, for God is loving us with an everlasting love, which is backed by an everlasting power." (William Barclay, Letter to the Romans, pg 73)

It all comes down to where we place our hope. When our hope is in God, it is secure.