thinking out loud 3 - the birth of hope

When we suffer, we need hope. And if we have hope - real, solid hope - we can go on and, somehow, get through the hard times.


I don't doubt that that is true. But I want to set it in the light of Romans 5:4,5 where Paul is speaking about Christians doing the seemingly-odd thing of glorying in their sufferings - how can that possibly be so? He tells us that it can, and does, happen because

we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. (v.4)

In his formulation, hope is at the end of the process; it grows out of the development of attested character, which is itself the product of persevering under trial.

If I had been asked to write that sequence I would have opted for suffering-hope-perseverance-character, or possibly with perseverance and character reversed. But I definitely would have put hope next to suffering as the dynamic which alone will allow for perseverance and character, however they are then ordered.


Can we persevere without hope? In 1 Thessalonians 1:3 Paul is quite clear that the endurance seen in that church was the product of hope. I don't think he's suggesting in Romans 5:4 that hope is entirely absent until character is securely formed on the back of perseverance. But maybe he is suggesting that the energising reality of hope is most securely-grounded where perseverance and attested character are the soil in which it is birthed.


Does this mean, then, that such hope is a human construct or achievement, since it depends (at least in part) on perseverance and character? Perhaps Romans 5:5 helps us here: the hope in which we can boast and rejoice will not ultimately be seen to be empty because God has poured his love into our hearts through the gift of his Spirit.


But maybe the even more important question is how we can help those who are suffering - do we simply urge them to hope in God, giving solid biblical reasons for doing so? Clearly that is never out of place and can be of great value. But maybe we need to somehow help them to just keep going, even in the absence of deeply-felt hope, standing with them, holding them up insofar as we can, seeking to encourage the perseverance that develops character and that then gives birth to a deeper, more secure hope.