[From Part II Chapter III: "Love Hopes All Things and Yet is Never Put to Shame"]
“Love… hopes all things.” ~ 1 Corinthians 13:7
Hope, like love itself, is
difficult to command with our conscious mind. It is hard to decide to be hopeful, just as it is hard
to decide to love someone—hard, but
by no means impossible. But we do often choose to give up hope, even if we are
not aware of the choice. There are two reasons that we give up hope for the
people we love. The first reason is despair: that is, we lose faith in love.
The experiences of our life convinces us that hope is mistaken, that the world
we live in does not reward hope. This experience leads us to focus on the
negative possibilities of what can happen in our relationships. As Kierkegaard
writes,
“’It is possible,’ says despair, ‘it is possible that even the most sincere enthusiast nevertheless becomes weary, gives up the struggle, and sinks into the service of the second-rate; it is possible that even the deepest believer nevertheless at some time abandons faith and chooses disbelief; it is possible that even the most burning love at some time cools off, child; it is possible that even the most upright man comes to a detour and is lost; it is possible that even the best friend can become changed into an enemy, even the most faithful wife into a perjurer—it is possible: therefore despair, give up hope, henceforth do not hope all things in any man or for any man!’” [1]
Despair causes us to get caught
up in all of the negative possibilities, all the ways things can go wrong. But,
of course, focusing on the negative possibilities is a choice—the fact that they are possibilities means that things can
go the opposite way. And this is what love reminds us of:
“Yes, indeed, this certainly is possible, but the opposite is also possible. ‘Therefore never in unlovingness give up a person or give up hope for him, for it is possible that even the most prodigal son can be saved, that the most embitter enemy, alas, he who was your friend, it is still possible that he can again become your friend; it is possible that he who has sunk the deepest, alas, because he stood so high, it is still possible that he can be raised up again; it is still possible that the love which has turned cold can burn again—therefore never give up any man, not even at the last moment; do not despair. No, hope all things!”[2]
Love reminds us that things can
go well too: our hope can be rewarded, our love can be restored, relationships
repaired. And as Christians, we know that the power that rules the universe is
on the side of hope, and that ultimately love with conquer all through Jesus
Christ. And so you might say that for Christians, hope is an article of faith.
When we lose hope we have lost sight of who God is. As long as we remember who
Christ is and what he is doing, we must keep our hope and love.
The other reason we abandon love
is as a form of punishment. Whether its because we’re trying to get the other
person’s attention, or we’re responding to some kind of pain they may have
caused us, we often withdraw our love for a person because we want them to feel
the loss of our love. We want it to have an impact on them. And yet, as
Kierkegaard points out, the most profound impact, when we cease to love others,
is not on the people we were loving, but on ourselves. He writes,
“When someone says, ‘I have given up my love for this man,’ he thinks that it is this person who loses, this person who was the object of his love. The speaker thinks that he himself possesses his love in the same sense as when one who has supported another financially says ‘I have quit giving assistance to him.’ In this case the fiver keeps for himself the money which the other previously received, he who is the loser, for the giver is certainly far from losing by this financial shift. But it is not like this with love; perhaps the one who was the object of love does lose, but he who ‘has given up his love for this man’ is the loser. Maybe he does not detect this himself; perhaps he does not detect that the language mocks him, for he says explicitly, ‘I have given up my love.’ But if he has given up his love, then he has ceased to be loving.”[3]
When we stop loving a person in
order to punish them or to get revenge, we are really only punishing ourselves.
When we give up hope because we don’t want
to hope that a person can change, we hurt ourselves. Love exists when it is
expressed, When we decide to stop expressing love, we stop loving. The
consequences for me when I decide to no longer love are much greater than they
are for the person I have stopped loving. Hope is part of showing love. Showing
love is necessary for having love. Having love is necessary for the life to
which God has called us. And so we must not give up hope for those we love—for
their sake, because God can act at any time, and for our own sakes, so that we
may never be unloving.
Dear Father.
Hope is so hard to do. It’s easy
to talk about, but it is hard to do.
Being hopeful forces me to be strong and stubborn, to dedicate myself to good,
to your service. And I confess that I often do not want to do that. I often
want to give up hope—after all it is far easier to give up hope than to hold
onto. But you are a God of hope. You have already won the victory; you have
guaranteed our hope. Give me the strength to hold onto that hope, not only when
it gives me strength, but also when it forces me to work and be faithful.
Strengthen me for the struggle of showing love when it doesn’t seem that my
love will be rewarded, when it seems that evil will triumph and love will be
rejected. Make me ever mindful that your love has already won.
In the name of Jesus, who won the
victory of love,
Amen.
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