Soulscape: Why we all need hope in life

With global travel coming to grinding halt over the last couple of weeks, people across the globe have been frantically trying to return home. We've been reminded that, despite our best efforts, nature can bring all our endeavours to an abrupt non-negotiable halt. When it does, a degree of panic ensues.
As we get older we realise that life goes pear shaped from time to time. It's an inescapable reality that reveals the soft underbelly of our doubts and fears. Security in all areas of life is little more than a fine thread, yet we delude ourselves into thinking it's thick wire rope.
Part of the reason for this delusion is the deep need for hope. It's something that every one requires. It's that moment in personal darkness when a pinprick of light makes it possible to face the unsettled realities we find ourselves in. We can't live without it.
In recent years I have had to unpack what hope is. I lived with the belief that hope is a feeling that everything will turn out well. Pain will stop, suffering will cease and every issue will be solved some time soon. I have come to understand this is not the case.
Real hope has no concept of tomorrow being better. It is not framed on the belief that the future will turn out well because because financial institutions finally sort themselves out. Hope is not premised on such material images.
Real hope is tougher than that. Real hope is an attitude of living which provokes us to see things in new ways. It is not the flaky conviction that life will turn out well but the certainty that life will make sense, regardless of how it turns out. It is akin to a night-light in dark times. Life might be difficult, but it is OK.
Hope only describes a life based on another word - trust. It's is the foundation of all
Two years ago Tony McClean, a teacher at Elim Christian College, died while trying to save someone else relationships. Trust is intensely human and is a gift from one person to another. Trust is based on the knowledge you are loved and that love is enough to live and die for. Everything else is secondary.in the Mangatepopo gorge. I knew Tony very well, he was a young man of great hope in all areas of life. For the most part his hope was birthed through his lifelong trust in the God who loves us more than we can comprehend.
Jesus is fully that God. Yet, despite having all the power of the universe crackling at his finger tips, Jesus makes no promise of a comfortable life for his followers. He simply claimed that if we trust him by following him, the event we call life does make sense - no matter the circumstances.