(Joshua 2 excerpts: Psalm 62:1-7)
There’s a saying that is stuck to thousands of refrigerators around the world. It is this:
“I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord; plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” (Jer. 29:11, NIV)
Through Jeremiah God spoke of a future for His people, though currently dis-possessed. They are the central words of a letter to the Jews in exile in Babylon (because of their consistent independence and rebellion) and the context is the message that after 70 years they will be restored. That was the plan God had for them and that was the hope they could have. It was a word intended to minister both faith and hope.
It’s a word the Lord often ‘quickens’ (brings alive) to His those who love Him now. It is frequently quoted over people as an encouragement - and so it should be. We serve the only One who knows outcomes and ends – from before their beginnings! A literal translation of Jeremiah 29:11 goes like this: ‘I am aware of the intentions I have for you etc …. intentions to give you an expected end (or desired outcome)’ The Hebrew word here is TIQVAH.
A definition. Hope is desire transformed: in the natural realm we see this all the time. For example, a loved one is sick and given a grim prognosis. Everyone’s desire and wish is recovery and health but all seems lost. Then doctors find a new treatment which has seen good results and propose its use. Suddenly desire and wishful thinking are transformed into something else. Hope is born and it transforms and even subsumes desire – and it transforms people too. The desire is still there, but it has been changed and elevated to something different and greater. Notice that the new thing called hope is based on a new factor in the equation. Hope has a foundation. It stands on a word of authority from an authority.
Transformed desires: when the scriptures say, ‘delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart’ (eg. Psm 37:4) the premise is our delight in the Lord! (I’ve heard people say ‘He just wants to give you the desires of your heart’. No! That might just be delighting in your own desires. He wants you to delight in Him!). For - those who are in love with Jesus and delight in Him quickly find something happening to their desires! Those desires are transformed from being ego-centric to being Christo-centric. We find ourselves desiring to please Him; desiring what he desires and to be one with His desires! And we find that these transformed desires are the ones He wants to meet.
Biblical ‘Hope’ is expectation and is the cord that connects now to then; the present to the future. Look at Rahab (and remember that she appears in Jesus’ lineage – see Matt. 1:5 and in the faith-hero list of Heb. 11). In her heart was a desire and yearning for a better life. God put that there. When the Hebrew spies made a promise to her searching heart, desire became elevated to hope. Now follow this closely, for here is a remarkable thing. The cord that she suspended from her window was the sign of her new-found hope. It represented a desired outcome. And …. the word for cord is? TIQVAH! (Josh 2:18. And note that in Josh. 2:15 the word ‘rope’ is a different word). She hung a ‘tiqvah’ from her window! It was (as we also say) ‘a thread of hope’. Hope is the cord that connects our present to our future. Hope in the Biblical sense is expectation – even anticipation. From whence does it come? It comes from God. Only He can plant in our heart both a desire which is His and which therefore has an expected outcome. David said in Psm. 62:5 ‘my soul waits calmly (without fuss!) for God alone for my expectation (tiqvah) is from Him.’ This is partnership with Him, indeed. We can be still and calm when the hope/expectation has been planted within by Him! And, it has a foundation on which it stands.
Biblical Hope is under-girded by Faith OR, Faith is the base on which Hope is built and rises. Hebrews 11:1 teaches, ‘now faith undergirds (hupostasis – stands beneath) things hoped for and is the proof (persuasion) of things not (yet) seen.’ This is how it works – indeed how He works to make us partners in what He’s doing; as we draw near to delight in Him, He transforms our desire or plants a desire within us, in our deepest place. It is His desire, shared with us! As we appropriate it and pray into it, it becomes richer and stronger and then He begins to give something else! Often He speaks confirming words into it and His word creates faith that undergirds an expectation. It is a cord connecting us to what He will do. For Rahab, desire was planted within by God. He sent His messengers at the right moment and they spoke words of promise from God to her. With this ‘word’, faith undergirded her heart’s desire and it became tiqvah – an expected outcome (within) evidenced by the outward sign, the (tiqvah) cord. Desire turns into expected outcome when undergirding faith enters the equation.
Amy Carmichael the great missionary to India, expressed it this way, 'It is a safe thing to trust Him to fulfil the desires which He creates'. He puts things in our heart that He intends to fulfil –with our co-operation!
Ian Heard
October 18, 2015
