Although you have never seen him, you love him, and without seeing you now believe in him, and rejoice with inexpressible joy touched with glory because you are achieving faith's goal, your salvation. 1 Peter 1:8-9
Every so often in my work as a teacher, I have the opportunity to talk to my students on topics that cross over with faith; I had such an opportunity recently. With the upcoming celebration of Presidents' Day the topic of hope came up. The book I had chosen to read with my class talked about Barack Obama and his believing in things that were not yet, but that held the possibility to be realized. The book's narrator said that "hope is believing in what you can't see yet."
Now although the book was about the president, it was quite non-political. Instead it focused on the value of believing in what might be. I used it as an opportunity to talk about what I believe can be in each one of us. Each one of us may have, and should have, hope.
Being a public school teacher I don't teach religion per se, but I appreciate those times that I can talk about the values of faith. It's possible to communicate God's grace to others without ever having to say a word. We do it through love, or as I told my class, as human beings we learn to stand with each other; we learn the meaning of solidarity. Sometimes the greatest thing we can do for others is to stand with them, to take their part, to be on their side. I asked my class what they thought they could do for others, especially the poor. Maybe the best answer I got was from a student who said, "Be their friends."
Going beyond what I was able to say to my class, I know that my hope and my source of rejoicing and inexpressible joy, lies in the one who, as the psalmist says, is my hiding place. My source is the one I can go to in order to be instructed in the things of hope. He is the one who offers me retreat, who speaks to my soul, and in that retreat who fills my heart with that which overflows in inexpressible joy.
It's a joy that comes back to me with the best affirmations that I could ever get. It comes to me from the honesty of a student who can't help but tell me that I "rock" and offers me his knuckles to bump against mine. It comes to me in the smiles of my students, in their laughter and high fives. Really, it's the best evaluation I could ever get—when I know I've given hope and when I receive that same hope from my students. Hope is tied to love.
Indeed the Lord hears us and certainly he speaks to us in return. It's a truly wonderful thing when we learn to hear his voice when he speaks, when we learn to see him in the common places of our lives. To see God with our eyes, to hear him with our human hearing, means to look and listen with faith's vision and hearing, with hope's abundant senses.
Learning to hear God is a great thing, but perhaps a greater thing is learning allow God to transform what we hope for and long for into a tangible reality. God is a transforming power. God can take us from our here and place us in his dimension. God is the rescuer who will not allow our enemies to rejoice over us. We cry to God and he heals us.
We call out in the night, "O God hear the groaning of my soul. Turn and look upon me in this low estate, for I have need of you." He answers us and he gives us hope and he lets us see it become salvation unfurled before us.
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