Hope: The Grace to Stand

A Bible Study on Hope (Part 2)

Emily Dickinson wrote in her famous poem that “hope is the thing with feathers.” Using the metaphor of a bird that continues to sing within the human soul, even through difficult times, she identified something that can make one hold on even when all seems to be lost. But the truth is that hope doesn’t always sing; sometimes it groans. An unexpected divorce, job loss, cancer diagnosis, death of a loved one—these are times that the notes don’t always come.  But the Bible gives us a glimpse of what hope really looks like.

Please read our passage for today’s study: Romans 5:1-11

The most dangerous and deadly condition of life is to be lost without Christ. Because of our sin nature we are eternally separated from God and everything that is good. When we are justified through faith in Christ, we are reconciled to God, no longer being counted as His enemies. Our hope is no longer the thing with feathers that just continues to sing in hard times. Our hope is in the fact that we have been saved from God’s wrath. It’s an eternal perspective that sees beyond the pain and suffering of our present moment to the glory that is to be revealed. “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).

Hope is not simply a cup-half-full optimism that continues to sing despite the circumstances. Hope is an assurance that this world is not all there is, even if we are clinging through the tears and the groanings of prayers that can’t be verbalized and notes our lips can’t form. “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express” (Romans 8:26).

When the pain is so deep that all we can do is groan in our spirit, but we are assured that God is there—that’s hope. When the darkness seems to overwhelm us, but we are convinced that there is a better life to come, that’s hope. In Psalm 137 we read of the Israelites after they had been taken captive in Babylon. They had been utterly defeated, lost their homes, their family members, and been separated from the place of worship. When their captors demanded that they sing the songs of Zion, they hung up their harps and mourned over the cruelty, injustice, and suffering they had faced.

“How can we sing the songs of the LORD while in a foreign land?” (Psalm 137:4).  This is not to say that they didn’t have abiding joy or a spirit of worship even in the midst of difficult circumstances. We know that Paul and Silas sang and worshiped God during their imprisonment in a Philippian jail. But at times the pain is so raw and deep that only the Holy Spirit can express our hearts to God in prayer as He “intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express” (Romans 8:26).

True hope only comes through the Spirit. It’s something we develop as “suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope” (Romans 5:4). Did you get that? We have to suffer. And persevere. And grow in godly character. At the end of all that, hope remains. And that hope cannot disappoint because it is founded in the love of Christ.

“But God demonstrates his love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). It’s the assurance of life forever with Christ that sustains us in the darkest of times. It’s the fact that we can still rejoice because our hope is not in circumstances this side of eternity but in the glory of God forever. 

It’s the peace we have with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand (Romans 5:1-2). Oh yeah, that’s what hope looks like—when we just keep standing in grace even when a melody escapes us. True biblical hope isn’t the thing with feathers; it’s the thing with feet.

Let’s pray.

Father, even when the song in our hearts won’t make it to our lips, we are thankful for the gift of Your Holy Spirit, who intercedes for us. Thank You for the grace, sufficient in all its varied ways for each moment. You are God and You are good. And that is enough.