I want to start today with a distinction that I think matters more than it might sound.
Optimism is a personality trait. Some people have more of it than others. It is the tendency to expect things to work out, to look for the upside, to assume the future will be better than the present. Optimism is not a bad thing. But it is not the same as hope, and conflating them creates a problem: if hope is just optimism, then when you are in a season where you cannot muster optimism, you have lost your hope. And that is a frightening place to be.
But biblical hope is not optimism. It is not a feeling you have to generate or sustain through willpower. It is a confidence grounded in something that has already happened, something that has already been guaranteed, something that does not depend on your ability to feel positive about the situation you are in.
That is what I want to spend our last day on. Because I think a lot of people in hard seasons have lost their optimism and concluded they have lost their hope. And I want to show you from Scripture that those are two different things.
The hope that does not put us to shame
And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
Romans 5:5"Hope does not put us to shame." In the Greek, the word for shame here means to be disappointed, to be shown to have placed your confidence in something that did not hold. Paul is saying: the hope we have is not the kind that leaves you looking foolish for having trusted it. It will not collapse under the weight of what you are carrying. It is not built on circumstances that could change. It is grounded in something that cannot be moved.
That something is the love of God, poured into our hearts by the Spirit. Not a love you have to earn or sustain through correct behavior. Not a love that fluctuates based on how well your current season is going. A love that was poured out, past tense, settled, given, in you already, through the Spirit who lives in you. That is the ground of the hope.
The resurrection as the anchor
Christian hope is not a vague aspiration that things will get better. It is rooted in a specific historical event: the resurrection of Jesus. And the resurrection is not just good news about Jesus. It is a promise about what is coming for everyone who belongs to Him.
And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.
Romans 8:11The same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you. The power that reversed death is not somewhere at a distance, available in principle. It is in you. It is the same event, the same power, applied to you. The resurrection is not just Jesus's story. It is the beginning of a story that has your name in it.
When Paul talks about hope in the context of suffering, he always comes back to this. The suffering is real. The groaning is real. And the glory that is coming is more real than both.
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
Romans 8:18He is not minimizing the suffering. He spent eight verses before this describing the groaning of creation, the groaning of believers, the groaning of the Spirit. He did not skip the pain to get to the punchline. But having named it fully, he says: even so. Even knowing exactly how hard it is. The glory that is coming is not worth comparing to it.
That is a breathtaking claim. And it is grounded entirely in what God has already done in the resurrection, which is the evidence that He means what He says about where things are going.
He is making all things new
He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new."
Revelation 21:4-5Every tear. Not most tears. Not the tears that qualify. Every one.
I want you to sit with that for a moment. Whatever you are crying about right now, whatever the grief is that has brought you through seven days of this series, it is in that sentence. He sees it. He is keeping track of it. And there is a day coming when He reaches out and wipes it away and says: the old order of things has passed. This is no longer how things are.
The old order of things: the groaning, the brokenness, the thorns and thistles of a world that went wrong in Genesis 3. The suffering that is not the way things were supposed to be. The death that does not belong in the world God made. All of it passes. All of it ends. And what takes its place is not just relief. It is something new. Something He is already making.
"I am making everything new." Present tense. Active voice. Right now. The renewal is underway, not only in the future, but in the present work of the Spirit in believers, in the Kingdom breaking in, in the moments of healing and restoration and joy that appear even in the middle of hard seasons like small lights in a long tunnel.
Hope is a posture, not a feeling
You do not have to feel hopeful for hope to be true. That is the point of grounding it in what God has already done rather than in what you are currently experiencing. The resurrection happened whether you feel encouraged today or not. The promise of Revelation 21 stands whether you woke up with energy or exhaustion. God is making all things new whether this particular Tuesday feels like evidence of that or not.
Hope in Scripture is less like a warmth in your chest and more like a stake in the ground. It is what you plant yourself next to when the wind is strong. "I do not feel this right now, but this is what is true." And you stay near it. You keep coming back to it. You let it interrupt the narrative that suffering is trying to write over your life.
That is not pretending. That is the most realistic thing a person can do, because the resurrection actually happened, and the promise is actually solid, and the God who made it is actually faithful. The hope is more real than the despair. It is just harder to feel when things are hard.
What to carry out of this series
We have covered a lot of ground this week. The brokenness of the world and why it is not your fault. The presence of God in a different form than you expected. The permission to lament without having to clean your grief up first. Jesus in the garden, knowing what was coming and going through it anyway. The Spirit who prays for you when you have no words. What suffering can produce and what it does not do automatically. And today: the hope that does not put you to shame.
None of this resolves the thing you are going through. I know that. These seven days are not a cure for a hard season. They are a companion for it. Something to read alongside the pain, not instead of it.
What I hope you carry out is this: God has not forgotten you. The suffering is not the end of your story. The hope is not optimism you have to generate. It is a settled thing, grounded in a resurrection that already happened, pointing toward a renewal that is already underway. You do not have to feel it for it to be true. But you can plant yourself next to it on the days when you cannot feel anything else.
He is faithful. That was true before this season started. It will be true when this season ends. And it is true right now, in the middle of it, whether the middle of it looks like evidence of that or not.
What is one true thing about God that has been harder to hold this week than it was before the hard season started? Name it. Then say it out loud: this is still true. Even now. He is still this.
Plant Yourself Next to the Truth
Write down one truth about God that you are choosing to hold onto. Put it somewhere you will see it this week. On the hard days, read it out loud: this is still true. Even now.
- What is the difference between optimism and hope? Which one have you been relying on in this season?
- How does the resurrection change what you have permission to hope for?
- What has shifted in you over these seven days, even if your situation has not changed?
- What is one thing from this series you want to carry into the next week?
Father, I have made it to the end of seven days. That is not nothing. Thank You for meeting me here, even in the days when I could not feel You.
I am choosing to plant myself next to what is true: You are making all things new. The tears will be wiped away. The old order is passing. The hope does not disappoint because it is grounded in what You have already done, not in how I feel today.
I do not know how long this season will last. I am not going to pretend I do. But I know who holds it, and I know what You have promised, and I am choosing to trust those two things when I cannot trust my own feelings.
Thank You that You are faithful. Thank You that the resurrection is real. Thank You that the end of the story is already written. I am going to keep walking, because You are already ahead of me on the road. In Jesus Name, Amen.
You made it through all seven days. That matters. The season you are in is still real, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. But you have spent a week pressing into it with Scripture, with honesty, with prayer, and with a God who has been present the whole time, whether it felt like it or not.
He is still here. Keep going. He is faithful.
With love and hope for your walk with Him, Claire
You have completed the series
Seven days. Seven honest conversations. The world is broken and God knows it. He is present. You are allowed to grieve. He went through the hard part too. The Spirit carries what you cannot say. Suffering is working something. And hope does not disappoint.
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