Defeating Hopelessness

As I’ve been studying hope, I’ve come to see that hope and the lack of hope (hopelessness) are linked to and fed by what a person focuses on. Prisoners in the concentration camps and prisoners of war experienced and wrote about focus as a tool of hope. Their experiences and those of their fellow prisoners reveal that those who focused on the future suffered differently than those who focused on their circumstances. In the first century, a church leader wrote a letter, known through history as “Hebrews”, found in the New Testament. The letter was written to encourage a group of Hebrew followers of Jesus. This group of disciples were suffering persecution. The hardship and suffering were enticing them to denounce Jesus as the Messiah and to return to traditional Jewish practices. Their leader encouraged them: “We must never stop looking to Jesus. He is the leader of our faith, and he is the one who makes our faith complete. He suffered death on a cross. But he accepted the shame of the cross as if it were nothing because of the joy he could see waiting for him. And now he is sitting at the right side of God’s throne.” (Hebrews 12:2 ERV) The church leader encouraged the disciples to focus on Jesus. Jesus, the leader and completer of their faith. The author of the letter points to Jesus as the model of focus. Jesus “accepted the shame of the cross as if it were nothing,” because of what he could see out in front of Him. Jesus didn’t focus on the circumstances of his arrest, trial, beatings and execution. He focused on the joy waiting for him. Jesus was full of hope because of the joy he could see awaiting him on the other side of the events he was about to endure. On the other side of His arrest, trial, beatings, execution, death, and burial was the resurrection and the birth of the family of God, the church. Look beyond your trials, testing and hardships. Look beyond the instability and uncertainty of these days. Look out on the horizon. Look to Jesus. “We must never stop looking to Jesus.”