Hope
Read Romans 5:1-5.
Don't you wish Paul was wrong? I do, but the reality is there is no substitute for practical experience. I remember when I was a kid learning to wax the car. I would have much rather stood back and watched Dad do it, or better yet, kept playing in the back yard, but Dad wanted my brother and I to learn how. So we learned by doing. That was my Dad's philosophy, and while I didn't think so as a kid, I realize now it is the best (and truest) philosophy there is. Now, I don't wax my cars anymore...but that time did not go to waste because I did learn the value of a job well done...under the watchful eye of my Dad.
This philosophy is also true in life. There is no substitute for practical experience. Paul says as much here in Romans. Suffering produces perseverance. Perseverance produces character. Character produces hope. And hope does not disappoint us...ever.
I've learned that truth many times in my life; you have too, I'm sure. As a young pastor, hospital visits were not something I looked forward to. It was a good week when, on my day to visit in the hospital, we had no one there. When I had to go, I would make the visits short, to the point, pray and get out of there. That was true of me (and my apologies to anyone I visited in those early years!) pretty much until I became a patient myself. Following my heart surgery, I was in the hospital for a week, and I learned by practical experience how long those days are. How you long for a visit, someone to talk to, some noise other than the television. The power of a prayer, even a short one. The joy of knowing that someone else believed in and was praying for your healing as well! Suffering produces perseverance, which produces character, which produces hope.
And hope does not disappoint. Ever.
I wish Paul was wrong. I wish there was another way to get to hope. But there doesn't seem to be. We get there by going through the difficult times and not around them. And when someone walks through that time with us, it makes all the difference in the world.
I struggle with this passage so, so much. Dad would say it would build character. It's so funny how we never heard the perseverance or hope part of the equation. But I always put his abuse linked in to this verse. He said it to us like he was doing us a favor by tearing down every single part of you until character was hard to build because there was nothing left of you to build upon.
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