Hope Against Hope
Bottom of the seventh inning, 2nd round of the CIF playoffs my senior year of high school. I had just made two errors on the mound that broke the tie and allowed the visiting team, who happened to be the state champions the year before, score their go-ahead two runs. Down by two, all they have to do is get three outs and our season, along with my high school career, is over. Things seemed hopeless.
We led off with a single, I came to bat and walked, then another single to load the bases with nobody out. Then magic happened, we hit a game-tying, two RBI double in the right center field gap. After an intentional walk to load the bases again and keep the force out in play, our runner on third took a hard step towards home and the pitcher flinched. He balked in the walk off run and our season was kept alive.
When considering the situation going into the bottom half of the last inning, everything was pointing to a sad ending that would see our senior-heavy team playing together for the last time, but we pulled through. We had hope even against the odds.
There’s a story in the Old Testament about a man named Abraham. He was in his nineties and had no kids because his wife Sarah was barren. He was told from the Lord to leave his hometown and go to a land that God would show him. God promised him that through his own offspring the families of the world would be blessed. Here’s the crazy thing – Abraham believed.
He left his hometown and for years waited for this promise to be fulfilled – year after year it didn’t. Loosely similar to that playoff game, the longer Abraham didn’t have a kid the more impossible, from the world’s standards, this promise seemed to be. Romans 4 describes Abraham’s faith in a beautiful fashion. “In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, ‘so shall your offspring be’” (Romans 4:18).
Abraham believed God, even while the reality of the situation reeked with unlikelihood and impossibility. “He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No unbelief made him waiver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised” (Romans 4:19-21).
Most would have seen the probability of the promise being fulfilled diminishing – leading them to unbelief. However, for Abraham, as the situation became more bleak he stepped into deeper belief. This story brings up two things in me – amazement and conviction. I’m amazed at Abraham’s full-hearted trust in God’s faithfulness. I’m also convicted that when things get harder I don’t always find myself stepping into more belief in who God is. Is this something you can relate to?
How I desire to walk in the constant assurance of God’s character and nature. So often the things I consider lead me to less faith, not more. I slip into futuristic problem-solving and find more question marks than answers. This leads me to anxiously try to control and manipulate situations, rather than let go and trust the outcomes to the Lord.
Is there an area in your life that you’ve been waiting on the Lord for what seems less and less likely to appear with each passing day? Has there been a promise spoken over you that has yet to come to pass? Maybe you’re struggling to see if God is even there or not. Friends, Abraham is called the father of faith simply because he believed what God said about him and God’s own character was true. He didn’t allow the magnitude of odds and impossibility lead him to a place of unbelief. Abraham chose hope and trust. I want to encourage us to prayerfully consider the things that have come to mind these past few minutes, bring them before the Lord, acknowledge the unlikelihood, and then step into thanksgiving that God is bigger than odds and probability, and He is faithful to complete the work He started in us. Let’s together, choose belief.
