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Posted by Danielle DuRant on July 1, 2009

Spring cleaning in my house is rarely completely finished. Year after year, though I have forgotten
about them until they are dusted and put back on a closet shelf, I still cant bring myself to let go of
them. They are books by the late cartoonist Charles Schulz. As a child I treasured his picture
paperbacks, reading them over and over, and eagerly awaited his holiday television specials. Yet Its
the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown evoked mixed emotions in meand does so to this day.
On Halloween night, the Peanuts gang goes trick-or-treating and to a party, but Linus refuses.
Instead, he persuades Charlie Browns little sister, Sally, to sit with him in a pumpkin patch to await
the Great Pumpkin. Linus announces that if you sincerely believe in the Great Pumpkin and wait for
him in a sincere pumpkin patch, he would arrive bearing gifts. Hell come here because I have the
most sincere pumpkin patch and he respects sincerity, Linus muses. Charlie Brown tells Sally that
the Great Pumpkin doesnt exist, but she joins Linus anyhow. What beckons her, however, is not so
much her belief in the Great Pumpkin as her crush on Linus.
I recall as a child each year hoping against hope that the Great Pumpkin would appear, at least for
Sallys sake. After all, Linus sincerely believes in him and Sally believes in Linus. But he never
shows. Instead, everyoneeven Snoopy!laughs at Linus and Sally is angry with him because
trusting him has caused her to miss out on the sweet rewards of Halloween.
Charles Schulzs popularity extends across generations and cultures, and his books have been
translated into numerous languages. Watching this cartoon as adult, I am intrigued by Schulzs many
allusions to sincerity and Linuss reinterpretation (or childish confusion) of the story of Santa Claus
with this parable of the Great Pumpkin.
Interestingly, the television special first aired in October 1966at the height of the death of God
controversy. On Good Friday of that year, three red words appeared on Time magazines black
cover: Is God Dead? In October 1965, a Time article opened with Emory University professor
Thomas Altizers soon-to-be famous quote: We must recognize that the death of God is a historical
event: God has died in our time, in our history, in our existence.1Altizer would argue in his book The
Gospel of Christian Atheism (1966) that the transcendent God we once hoped in and appealed to
now no longer existed, for where were signs of him to be found? Nevertheless, he assured his
readers that the God of our modern world intended that we live without his intervention, and rather
than hope in heaven, our transcendent longings could be met within our own world.
Thus, in such an atmosphere, perhaps Sallys and Linuss responses to the Great Pumpkins absence
give voice to both the anger and ambivalence of their generation. Sally cries, I was robbed! I spent
the whole night waiting for the Great Pumpkin, when I could have been out for tricks or treats.
Halloween is over, and I missed it! . What a fool I was. You owe me restitution! Conversely,
Linuss poignant letter to the Great Pumpkin reveals a quiet despair: Everyone tells me you are a
fake, but I believe in you. Sincerely, Linus van Pelt. PSIf you really are a fake, dont tell me. I dont
want to know.
A year later, however, the American release of a groundbreaking book by German theologian Jrgen
Moltmann would alter the religious climate in North America. Indeed, when Moltmanns Theology of
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Hope was released in 1967, The New York Times front page announced, God is Dead Doctrine
Losing Ground to Theology of Hope.2 Moltmann contended, If we had before our eyes only what
we see, then we should cheerfully or reluctantly reconcile ourselves with things as they happen to
be. That we do not reconcile ourselves, that there is no pleasant harmony between us and reality, is
due to our unquenchable hope. This hope keeps man unreconciled, until the great day of the
fulfillment of all the promises of God.3
Early in this work Moltmann builds upon John Calvins assertion that hope is the inseparable
companion of faith. Moltmann writes, Without faiths knowledge of Christ, hope becomes a utopia
and remains hanging in the air. But without hope, faith falls to pieces, becomes a fainthearted and
ultimately a dead faith. It is through faith that man finds the path of true life, but it is only hope
that keeps him on that path.4
What is hope? Hope, observes Calvin, is nothing else than the expectation of those things which
faith has believed to have been truly promised by God. Thus, faith believes God to be true, hope
awaits the time when this truth shall be manifested; faith believes that he is our Father; hope
anticipates that he will ever show himself to be a Father toward us; faith believes that eternal life has
been given to us, hope anticipates that it will some time be revealed; faith is the foundation upon
which hope rests, hope nourishes and sustains faith.5
Surveying the Territory Moltmann and Calvin identify the critical nature of hope: without hope, faith
falls to pieces hope nourishes and sustains faith. Faith relies on hope to press forward; if hope
becomes fragile, faith may lose its way.
Having been witness to the lives of many individuals who have crossed our ministrys path over the
years, we have heard various questions about the Christian faith. Can I truly know God? Is the Bible
trustworthy? How can God be good if there is so much suffering in this world? These are real
questions that can challenge ones belief in God, even causing some to feel they are experiencing a
crisis of faith. I know, for I have wrestled with similar questions as have those whom I know well.
Nonetheless, I have come to wonder if, for many, such a crisis of faith might be better described as
a crisis of hope. That is, the struggle is often not so much about belief in God as it is an expectation of
Him. Or, as a friend said recently, I believe Gods Word is true; I just dont know if its true for me. In
my friends case, he wasnt questioning what God could do but rather what He would do on his
behalf, and based on a past painful experience, his hope remains tentative.
At such crossroads we need directionand indeed, hope. Just as one would take time to study a
topographic map before venturing on a long hike, so we are wise to examine our spiritual terrain more
closely lest we arrive at a place only to ask where signs of God are to be found. Here again, Calvin
presents a thoughtful survey of the territory: Hope is nothing else than the expectation of those
things which faith has believed to have been truly promised by God (emphasis mine). Hope
anticipates the outcome of what faith believes, being confident of this, that he who began a
good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus (Phil. 1:6). Such
hope is grounded upon a past and future realityGods saving and preserving graceand offers an
ongoing promise for the present.
Thus, when circumstances threaten to cloud our view of hope, we may not only lose perspective but
also confidence in what we once held fast. A resignation of spirit may slowly give in to a rejection of
what once seemed possible. We may then begin to doubt our faith, whether what we believe is
actually true.
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Though this experience may be best identified as a crisis of hope for some, we cannot rigidly
demarcate the borders of faith and hope, for as noted thus far, each overlap and cannot stand without
the other. Calvin writes, [F]aith believes that he is our Father; hope anticipates that he will ever show
himself to be a Father toward us. Additionally, we arrive at our expectations of God (hope) from what
we believe (faith) to be true: his self-revelation in Scripture. As we continue on our journey these
expectations in turn shape (or misshape) our beliefs about Him and his work in our world.
So, taking our lead from Calvin, we will want to examine our hope, our expectation of those things
which faith has believed to have been truly promised by God. We will meet hopes companions as
well as some of its obstacles. And along the way, perhaps we will recognize signs of Gods faithful
presence where we once did not and journey forward with newfound hope.
The Object of Our Hope Unlike Linuss beliefs about the Great Pumpkin, in the Scriptures, hopeand
its antecedent, faithare not circumscribed by sincerity or some abstract state of mind but rather by
their object: the Triune God. In Psalm 25:3 David declares, No one whose hope is in you will ever be
put to shame and in 62:5 he pleads, Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him
(all biblical references are from NIV). The prophet Isaiah writes, Since ancient times no one has
heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you who acts on behalf of those who
wait for (or hope in) him (64:4). Gods name is even characterized by hope: the God of hope in the
benediction May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may
overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 15:13). Hope is, though perhaps not
expected, the fruit of suffering as well: we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that
suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not
disappoint us (or ESV: put us to shame), because God has poured his love into our hearts by the
Holy Spirit, whom he has given us (Romans 5:3-5).
The biblical writers often portray faith and hope as nearly identical or as building blocks, with faith
being the foundation and reason for hope: Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of
what we do not see. And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes
to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him (Hebrews 11:1,
6). Faith is defined by hope and also recognized as the necessary first step in a relationship with
God. Likewise, hope expands faiths horizon, believing God to be generous with those who
expectantly seek after Him. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure, says
Hebrews 6:19. This hope is Jesus Christ, who has reconciled us to God and anchored, or
intimately attached us, to Him. Like an anchor in a storm, Jesus holds us securely and keeps us from
losing our way. This hope is also the fulfillment of Gods promise to Abraham long ago, both in
Isaac and ultimately, Jesus: When God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one
greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself, saying, I will surely bless you and give you many
descendants. And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised (Hebrews 6:1315). Paul puts this waiting in stronger words: Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so
became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him (Romans 6:18). So
hope denotes to wait and to look in expectation and is linked with to trust, to desire, and to put
confidence, take refuge in God. The most common Hebrew expression, qawa, appears only once in
Genesis and mainly later in the Old Testament. Yet hopeand God being the object of hopeis
clearly implied in Gods covenant promises with Noah, Moses, Abraham, and David, and in the fabric
of relationship that He unfolds with Jacob, Ruth, Hannah, and his people of every generation. As He
reassures Joshua on the threshold of the Promised Land so He assures those who hope in Him, As I
was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor abandon you (Joshua
1:5; cf., Hebrews 13:5). Hope is, thus, an expectant longing, a trust, which rests upon Gods spoken
promise of his steadfast love, presence, and provision.
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The Place of Trust French philosopher Gabriel Marcel writes that when we place our trust in
someone, it is as if to say, I am sure that you will not betray my hope, that you will respond to it, that
you will fulfill it. Perhaps he had Hebrews 11 in mindNow faith is being sure of what we hope
forfor faith and trust are synonyms in French as well as in the biblical languages.
Church historian Martin Marty cites Marcel in his slim volume The Place of Trust. (The book, which is
well worth seeking out, is a compilation of Martin Luthers pastoral reflections on Jesuss Sermon on
the Mount.) Marty begins his introduction with these thought-provoking words:
Trust is at the root of healthy human life. Psychologist Erik Erickson speaks of basic trust as the
most profound need and outlook. The child, dependent upon elders, grows in confidence to the
degree that parents and others provide reasons for trust. We base our marriages on ways of life that
extend the wedding vows, which promise trust. Where trust is stretched we prop it up with contracts,
documents that make possible some security. Where trust breaks down there can be no mental
health.
Trust is also at the root of healthy spiritual growth. Philosopher Gabriel Marcel relates trust to belief in
someone. To believe in someone, which means, to place confidence in him, is to say I am sure
that you will not betray my hope, that you will respond to it, that you will fulfill it. To feel confident
enough to say that and to have reasons for meaning it is close to the heart of what Christians call
faith. They may flesh out the idea of faith by connecting it with contents: I believe that God made
me, that Christ saves me Yet such understandings of faith are hollow unless they are grounded in
the rich notion of trust: I believe in the God who made me, the Christ who saves me6
When I first read these insights a few years ago, I found myself wrestling with the same sense of
hope and hesitation that I felt regarding Sallys plight in the pumpkin patch. I dont doubt Gods
existence or the authority of Scripturesthe evidence and arguments are quite strong for bothbut
could I say with confidence that I truly trust Him? Not unlike my friend who wonders whether Gods
Word is true for him nor perhaps like you, if I am honest, I sometimes struggle to say to God, I am
sure that you will not betray my hope, that you will respond to it, that you will fulfill it. Rather, when I
lose sight of hope, like Sally missing out on Halloween, I feel empty-handed and angry, wondering
whether I can trust God.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines trust as assured reliance on the character, ability, strength,
or truth of someone or something and dependence on something future or contingent: hope. In the
Scriptures, the concept of trust rests at the intersection of faith and hope; it is confidence in God and
his promises. To build upon Calvins metaphor, then, trust is an inseparable companionor an
indispensable elementof faith and hope, and a central biblical theme of foremost
significance in the Old Testament.
The Hebrew word batah, which means to trust, to be full of confidence, and to feel safe, occurs
numerous times, overwhelmingly (and not surprisingly) in the Psalms. To trust connotes that sense
of well-being and security which results from having something or someone in whom to place
confidence.7 When the Old Testament authors wish to communicate faith or belief, they use batah
(or yare: fear). The New Testament writers use pistis, which is most commonly translated
as faith or belief. Trust is essentially synonymous with faith, with the emphasis on the former in the
Old Testament and on the latter in the New. However, both words are at root relational, concerned
with the object of ones faith: God. So as Marty suggests, faith begins with a belief that God exists
and develops into a trust in God.
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The other commonly used Hebrew word for trust is amen; its various verb forms connote to confirm,
support, uphold, to be certain, be assured, to believe, to put trust in, to be reliable, faithful. The
word for truth is derived from amen and is often used to describe Gods character and his covenant:
Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love
to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands (Deuteronomy 7:9).
The editors of the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament argue that there is a constancy and
an assurance associated with amen:
This very important concept in biblical doctrine gives clear evidence of the biblical meaning of faith.
At the heart of the meaning of the root is the idea of certainty borne out by the NT definition of
faith found in Heb 11:1. [I]t expresses the basic concept of support and is used in the sense of the
strong arms of the parent supporting the helpless infant. The various derivatives reflect the same
concept of certainty and dependability [and are] carried over into the New Testament
word amen which is our English word amen. Jesus used the word frequently (Mt 5:18, 26 etc.) to
stress the certainty of a matter. This indicates that the term so used in our prayers ought to
express certainty and assurance in the Lord to whom we pray.8
Given that God has revealed Himself as trustworthy and true to his Word, it is not surprising that the
Scriptures underscore that our trust (or hope or faith) in Him is foundational to our wellbeing. Over
and over we read, Blessed in the one who trusts in God (see e.g., Psalm 40:4, 84:12; Proverbs
16:20; Jeremiah 17:7). Likewise, we are repeatedly warned about unbelief and its consequences.
Indeed, though the Israelites neared the Promised Land, So we see that they were not able to enter,
because of their unbelief (Hebrews 3:19).
Thus we see from a brief biblical survey of hope and its companions, faith and trust, that they are
rooted in the very person of God. He has shown Himself to be faithful, reliable, and true, as one who
rewards those who earnestly seek him. Returning to Calvins definition of hope, then, we can
confidently say that what God has truly promised is Himself, for as Scripture tells us, there is no
one greater. So hope anticipates that he will ever show himself to be a Father toward us. We can
come to him expectantly, asking Him to guide us and trusting Him to steady and reassure us like an
anchor and a parents arms in a storm.
Obstacles to Faith, Hope, and Trust We have observed that trust rests at the intersection of faith and
hope and is a confidence in God and his promises. Just as we cannot easily separate the boundaries
of hope and faith neither can we separate trust: they are like a cord of three strands not quickly
broken (Ecclesiastes 4:12).
Moreover, I have suggested that sometimes a crisis of faith might be best understood as a crisis of
hope, in that, often it is not so much an intellectual struggle with the contents of Scripture as it is a
struggle with trustful expectancy in God. However, as we have seen, faith, hope, and trust overlap
and are at root relational: faith begins with a belief that God exists and moves toward a trust
and hope in God. Thus my aim in characterizing this crisis as one of hope is primarily to highlight
that without such expectancy, our relationship with God becomes stagnant and over time, we may
begin to doubt his Word. In fact, faith, hope, and trust are foundational to relationship and vital to our
spiritual and emotional development.
Pastor Peter Scazzero adds, Emotional health and spiritual maturity are inseparable. It is not
possible to be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature.9 Scazzero knows this
tension all to well, for though pastor of a large, growing church for many years, through his response
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to some difficult challenges he began to realize, [H]uge areas of my life remained untouched by
Jesus Christ. My biblical knowledge, leadership position, seminary training, experience, and skills
had not changed that embarrassing reality.10 Similarly, Ravi Zacharias begins his last chapter
in Beyond Opinion with these words: I have little doubt that the single greatest obstacle to the impact
of the gospel has not been its inability to provide answers, but the failure on our part to live it
out.11 As I have wrestled with these arguments and interacted with individuals in various stages of
their journey with God, I have noticed a few mindsets or patterns of relating that often act as
obstacles to our hope in God. Or perhaps more accurately, one sphere of influence, our family of
origin, may shape our ways of thinking and relating, both positively and negatively, well into
adulthood. Lest one wonder whether the following observations lean more toward psychologizing
rather than theological reflection, I would add that God himself is Being in relationshipEternal
Father, Son, and Holy Spiritand desires for us to know Him, calling his people his own children and
his church his bride. So, as we have already seen, in speaking of faith, hope, and trust, they
necessarily involve this relational dynamic. Similarly, to present apologetic arguments to someone
without taking time to understand the individuals particular obstacles to the gospel is to miss the
heart of Jesuss approach and teaching. For instance, Jesus interacted with the woman at the well in
a very different manner than he did with the rich young ruler, as he did with Nicodemus versus Pilate.
The first obstacle (or primary one from which others develop) may be our family of origin,
whichcontinues to shape us long after childhood. Here, we first learn about boundaries, authority,
expressing emotions (anger, sadness, etc.), addressing conflict, sexuality, and God, to name only a
few. Our families may give us a rich heritage and prepare us well for adulthood. Nonetheless, if we
have learned misguided ways of thinking and relating and have not addressed them as needed, they
can prove to be obstacles even well into adulthood. For instance, in one Christian family, the son was
taught that one reaches spiritual maturity when he stops asking questions (challenging authority)
and learns to restrain his emotions. He has since abandoned his faith and struggles to believe in
Gods existence because God appears to be emotionless and unresponsive to the suffering in our
world (and in his own life). Yes, he has some intellectual doubts, but at root, he feels hopeless and
angry.
The second obstacle is the mindset that right doctrine guarantees right relationship (trustful
intimacy) with God and others. We are emotional, social, intellectual, spiritual, and physical beings
and will languish if we believe (or have been taught) that one area is insignificant or to be
avoided.12 True transformation will involve every area of our life: our thoughts, actions, appetites,
emotions, relationships. Yet change comes slowly and through attention to each of these elements.
As the late John White contends in his classic book The Fight: A Practical Book for Christian Living,
God does not change you by magic. No wand will be waved over your head so that your deepest
problems vanish overnight. There may be breakthroughs, sudden insights, glorious experiences. But
the major work of transformation will be slow and often deeply painful. Yet the pain is immeasurably
reduced by trust and understanding.13
Just as we would not expect our bodies to be able to run a marathon (26.2 miles) by only reading
training plans and not actually running, so we ought not assume, for example, that giving our full
attention to doctrine and moral behavior is all that is needed to develop us into Christs image and to
flourish in relationship. (In many pietistic and fundamentalist circles, including the one in which I was
raised, such thinking is quite common unfortunately.) To focus on these areas while neglecting or
dismissing others is to overlook Gods design for us. Fellowship with other believers, enjoyment of
nature and beauty, concern for justice, exercise, rest, worship, and even play all contribute to our
development as children of God intimately related to our Heavenly Father and our world.
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The third obstacle, already introduced, is our expectations. Earlier we noted that we arrive at our
expectations of God from his self-revelation in Scripture. But, of course, this is only partially true, for
from the earliest moments of life we develop certain expectations within our family of origin. A child
learns to anticipate how her parents (or primary caregivers) will respond to her needs, and by age
one, she is beginning to assess whether she can trust them. Are they attentive, distracted, or
indifferent? Are they reliable (consistent), only occasionally reliable (inconsistent), or rarely if ever
reliable (consistently unreliable)? Their styles of relating influence the childs attachment to them,
especially with the mother or primary caregiver, and her capacity to feel secure, ambivalent, or
avoidant in relationship. So deeply imbedded are these expectations and patterns of relating that the
child carries them into adulthood.
Though the word attachment in not found in the Scriptures, In the Christian view of persons, it is a
basic structural fact of our nature that we get attached to things and persons, a fact not to be
resisted. Jesus says, Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matt. 6:21), thus
saying, in effect, What you are like at the center of your personality (your heart) is a function of the
kind of thing you are very attached to (your treasure).14 Indeed, secure attachment is clearly at the
root of the biblical concept of trust: that sense of well-being and security which results from having
something or someone in whom to place confidence. [I]t expresses the basic concept of support
and is used in the sense of the strong arms of the parent supporting the helpless infant
constancycertainty and dependability.15
The important research of attachment theory (and especially from Christian scholars16) reveals that
we form our expectations in primary relationships very early. In his book Becoming Attached: First
Relationships and How They Shape Our Capacity to Love, author and clinical psychologist Robert
Karen writes:
[T]he great promise of attachment theory has been the prospect of finally answering some of the
fundamental questions of human emotional life: How do we learn what to expect from others? How
do we come to feel what we do about ourselves in the context of an intimate relationship? How do
we come to use certain futile strategies in a vain effort to get the love we (often unconsciously) feel
was denied us as children? Perhaps its most startling and controversial claim is that insecure
attachment, which shows up at twelve months, is predictive of behavior not only at three, five, seven,
or fourteen years of agewhich has been well established in researchbut also at twenty, thirty, and
seventy, as people make romantic choices, parent their own children, get into marital squabbles, and
face the loneliness of old age. Equally important, attachment researchers have attempted to show
how insecure patterns of attachment can change, whether in childhood, as adjustments are made in
the family, or later, as the adult attempts to work through his early experiences.17
Why, for example, does the patriarch Jacob dance with deception and fear and spend much of his life
running from the blessing God promises him from birth? Why does he attempt to undermine his
future by employing futile strategies to get what God already desires to give him? It is not a stretch to
surmise that in his household of deceit, favoritism, and inconsistency, his expectations lead him
neither to trust God nor anyone else. Of course, God holds Jacob responsible for his own actions as
He does us; Jacob languishes in a foreign land for years with relatives that bring further deception
and sadness. Yet throughout Jacobs life, God offers him his blessing, hope, and steadfast presence:
I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go. I will not leave you until I have done what
is promised (Genesis 28:15, and see 31:3 and 32:9-12). Jacob receives these gifts halfheartedly,
expecting little from anyone except perhaps the future blessing he wrenches from his brother Esau.
Then on the fearful night before Jacob is to face Esau, God meets him and wrestles him until
daybreakuntil Jacob finally recognizes God is with him and cries out for Him to bless him.
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Poet Marilyn Chandler McEntyre poignantly senses Jacobs deeper battle and restless longing:
Jacob leans into the struggle like a child dreaming on a mothers lap, thrashing out his nightmare
while one loath to awaken holds him safe.18
So like Jacob, we may form assumptions about Gods character through unmet expectations and
painful experiences. Or we may have received constant approval but seldom faced discipline or had
our estimations of ourselves and God challenged. Of course, we need not experience early
deprivation to be felled by disappointment or mistaken expectations, for we may arrive at a distorted
view of God through unorthodox doctrine or weak theology. Whatever our stories, we may hold
misguided, rigid, or unrealistic expectations of Gods timing and work in our lives. We may ascertain
that if God is all-knowing, wise, and loving, then surely He will fix our situation or respond in a certain
manner. When life does not turn out as we hope or in our expected timeframe, we may question
Gods love and even begin to doubt his Word.
Thus we might add, As attachment figure, God is more than just comforter or protector. God is also
a model, an object of admiration, a commander, a judge; and the maturity of ones attachment to him
may vary along these dimensionsin terms, e.g., of how seriously one desires to be like him and
succeeds in being so, of how deeply one appreciates Gods goodness and beauty, of how obedient
one is, of how reverently one regards God as moral observer.19
Not surprisingly, our relationship with God usually reflects our first attachments and current pattern of
relating to others. Thus we can learn much about our relationship with Him in asking ourselves, Do
we normally feel secure, ambivalent, or avoidant in our relationships? Does trust come easily, or do
we fretfully seek control, or dismiss others with anger or indifference? These are not just questions of
psychology but of spiritual significance as well. If we labor with unresolved issues of trust and
insecurity we will struggle with these with God even though we may cognitively affirm his sovereignty,
goodness, and love. Or maybe we have lived with certain mindsets and expectations for so long that
we have learned to manage them or are not even aware of them. But when what once seemed
workable no longer works, hope may fade and faith unravel. We have seen this time and again with
individuals who cross our paths at RZIM and our own personal lives. This is why it is so critical to
examine possible obstacles to our relationship with God and the questions they may raise.
Faithful and Consistent We have taken time to consider our hope and expectations because faith,
hope, and trust are vital to our spiritual and emotional development. Perhaps if we have made some
discoveries along the way we will want to share them with a spouse, trusted friend, or wise counselor.
We may also want to bring our expectations of God before Him, asking Him to help us see them
more clearly, how we may have arrived at them, and whether they correspond to his character. God
is consistent and faithful to his Word, but He is not predictable. If He were, there would be no place
for grace or mercy.20 He sends rain to the just and unjust. He rewards a prostitutes shrewd deceit
with a secure place in the Promised Land (Rahab) while barring his prophet Moses from it because of
a rash act of rage. No, God is never unfaithful or inconsistent. Rather, as we have observed, our
inability to predict how or when He might resolve something we have brought to Him in prayer can
bring great unease and mistrust if we unconsciously perceive Him as an indulgent parent or
unreliable one we must win over. God is not an unreliable or indulgent parent, nor is He a heartless
judge, as Jesus reminds us in his parable on prayer and the persistent widow: And will not God bring
about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I
tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly (Luke 18:7-8a). Jesus told his disciples [this]
parable, Luke records, to show them that they should always pray and not give up (18:1). So might
we always pray and not give up, for there is hope in the mirror of Gods Word: the one true and
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trustworthy reflection of who God is and who we are becoming. Here we are comforted and
challenged, chastened and assured by the One who loves us and can speak into our lives like no
other. Here we can set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For
God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything (1 John 3:19b-20). We can bring our
expectations, fears, and questions before his throne of grace and let the light of Jesuss presence
shine into every dark and confusing place in our lives. We can hope in Him and rest in Him because
He promises to never leave us nor forsake us. So let us give Him our expectations and ask Him to
give us trustful expectancy. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for we who promised
is faithful (Hebrews 10:23). Then we may see signs of his faithful presence where we once did not
and begin to find our way forwardwith deeper hope.
Danielle DuRant is director of research and writing at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries
1 Quoted in The God Is Dead Movement, Time (October 22, 1965), 61.
2 Quoted in the Preface to the New Paperback Edition of Jrgen Moltmanns Theology of
Hope (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 10. Interestingly, Moltmann would later become a
Distinguished Visiting Professor of Systematic Theology (1983 to 1993) at Emory Universitys Candler
School of Theology in Atlanta.
3 Ibid, 21-22.
4 Ibid, 20.
5 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book III, 2:42.
6 Martin Marty, ed., The Place of Trust: Martin Luther on the Sermon on the Mount (San Francisco:
Harper & Row, 1983), ix-x.
7 Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer, Bruce Waltke, Theological Wordbook of the Old
Testament (Chicago: Moody, 1980), 101.
8 Ibid., 51.
9 Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality: Unleash a Revolution in Your Life in
Christ (Zondervan, 2006), 17.
10 Ibid., 18.
11 Ravi Zacharias, The Churchs Role in Apologetics and the Development of the Mind inBeyond
Opinion: Living the Faith We Defend, Ravi Zacharias, ed. (Thomas Nelson, 2007), 303.
12 Scazzero, 18.
13 John White, The Fight: A Practical Handbook for Christian Living (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity
Press, 1976), 112-113.
14 Robert C. Robertss, Attachment: Bowlby and the Bible in Roberts and Mark R. Talbot,
eds., Limning the Psyche: Explorations in Christian Psychology (Grand Rapids, MI: William B.
Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1997). 208-209.
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15 Harris, Archer, Waltke, 101 and 51.

16 See again, Robertss chapter in Limning the Psych, 206-228.
17 Robert Karen, Becoming Attached: First Relationships and How They Shape Our Capacity to
Love (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 7. For an excellent summary, see his earlier Atlantic
Monthly article, Becoming Attached, which was expanded into his book. The article is available
online:www.psychology.sunysb.edu/attachment/online/karen.pdf.
18 Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, Jacobs Struggle with the Angel in Drawn to the Light: Poems on
Rembrandts Religious Paintings (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company,
2003), 23.
19 Roberts, 227.
20 I am indebted to a wise individual for this insight.

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