hope, He's coming

i'll probably sound like a broken record in this post. That's because i simply can't get over Lewis' discourse on Hope. it's so so very beautiful. So sorry of any repeats from last week's post.

HOPE
Synonyms:

noun.  expectation - expectancy - expectance - trust - promise

verb.  trust - expect - anticipate

 

i love the idea of Lewis that hoping is not passive. It's active, because something must be done to have hope. To have hope means to look forward to better things, to expect that this looking forward is not futile, to trust in God's promises of True Happiness. 

 

He says, "If i find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable conclusion is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only arouse it, to suggest the real thing."(Mere Christianity)

 

That doesn't necessarily devalue our mortal experiences, but gives us something to hold onto when things in our lives don't feel exactly right, when we come close to grasping a certain feeling or longing, but can't quite get there. We know that there is something more.

Lewis describes the tree ways that people deal with this grasping. The first way, the Fool's Way, is when people remained discontented for the duration of their lives. The second, the Way of the Disillusioned 'Sensible Man' is the way of the pessimist who doesn't see the point in hoping at all. Then, there's the Christian Way, the way of knowing that all of our longings will be satisfied, it's just that we are made for another world. 

Ahh! Beautiful.