Where does our hope come from?

I took a couple of days off from the blog to let the last post permeate in like osmosis.  I have some more comments on greed I will share in the next day or so, but I felt necessary to change topics for a short time. I'd like to talk a little about hope, and how it can shape our lives. At the start of this blog I offered hope to those who need it.  There is hope to be had in this world.  Yet, so many people walk and live in a world of despair. 

I imagine they are living like it it stated in Job 17:15 "where then is my hope- who can see any hope for me?"  Job, you may or may not know, was the definition of suffering.  He lost everything, all his children, all his property, his very health.  Everything.  And he had every reason to despair, to be hopeless, to want to curse God and die. In fact, his friends and wife kept egging him on to do so.  I lost 1 child, and I still have days where I feel that way. But the funny thing about it, Job didn't.  He didn't curse God.  He didn't blame God at all.  And the funny thing about the verse I quoted above, I misquoted it on purpose. 

If you have time, read the book of Job.  It's an interesting take on how grief could destroy someone, and yet it doesn't.  The verse I quoted from Job 17 is from a dialogue from Job.  He is talking in Job 16 and 17, and is basically saying if I don't hope in the Lord, I don't have any hope.  Pretty much the opposite of what the single verse above insinuates.  That is where our hope comes from.  From God.  Something that was obvious to a grieving father is just as obvious now.  Life without your Creator is hopeless.  That's why there are so many people walking around in life in total despair.  There is no joy, no life, no love, no hope for them.  God is our source for all of these.  From 1 John 4:10, our hope comes not because we love God, but because He loves us.  Indescribable love.  His love was shown on a cross.  His very life abandonment for us.  That's where our hope comes from.

I misquoted the verse above to prove a point.  Our lives are very self-centered, self-focused, self-motivated.  In other words, greedy of self.  Yet in our own despair, their is more hope, more life than you can imagine, if we just open our eyes, and get rid of the tunnel vision we tend to look at things with.  Verse 17:15 seems to be pretty bleak.  The speaker is crying out for any hope anywhere.  Yet, if we look at the entire work, we see that is not the case at all.  Job's hope here is in God, and he is trying to make that point.  By removing our own tunnel vision on our problems, and steping back to take another look, we usually will see that our Creator is working to help us in ways we might not expect or imagine.