A comma between hope and future reality (P2)

What brings us to Jesus Christ? Surely most people have come to Christ through their own afflictions.

We can read a verse in the Bible (Romans 5:3) that says afflictions produce patience. The passage through affliction happens simply as a consequence of the circumstances of our life, which humanly we learn to bear with patience.

This patience, coming from our by now familiar knowledge of situations that repeat themselves, consequently leads us to experience. From these experiences we ALL become "masters of life".

Where, instead, does our true life begin?

Our true life begins where our experience leads us to the true PEACE that is found in HOPE. Now, peace is with God (we read it in the lines of part 1 of this article). We come to God through, by means of, Jesus Christ. So knowing Christ leads us to peace with God by means of hope.

Simplifying the Bible verses of Romans 5:1-8: AFFLICTIONS/patience/experience/HOPE.

Consequence: hope/knowledge of Christ/Peace/God the Father

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for , the proof of things not seen.

Letter to the Hebrews 11:1

I don't intend to dwell on the subject, but it is through Christ that we have a relationship with the Father, and going back to afflictions that produce patience and so experience, it is only through HOPE that we can HOPE that what we desire may come. Only through Christ Jesus can you have that right hope of obtaining what you ask for. Jesus is the door.

There is only one important point I felt I should communicate, and it gives this article (split into two parts) its title: it refers precisely to the COMMA placed in the verse of Hebrews 11:1 (which I highlighted in bold)

I have often heard declarations made in faith to call down someone's desire for another person's life. Example: "I pray to God in the name of Jesus that my friend may get the job he is longing for and wants for his life". I didn't see anything wrong in this until I had a contrary revelation, the very revelation that allowed me to write this article.

Looking at the prayer made for our friend, we see this: I pray for my friend, hoping with certainty that the thing can happen. To whom do I make this prayer? To God the Father, through Jesus Christ, with the hope that it will happen. But I must not presume that my friend will get that job. If the idea of a job stands for financial fulfilment in his life, whatever job it is, I know God will bring it about.

Going back to the verse of Hebrews 11:1: now, the certainty lies in hope, but! The verse is divided by a COMMA which, small as it is, gives meaning to everything. COMMA, the proof of things not seen. The COMMA is God. We make Him small by asking Him for things in faith, with SHOUTS of faith, with hands raised to heaven as a sign of VERY GREAT faith, but! The proof of reality, of what will actually be, which we can't see at the moment, is GIVEN by God. You, in affliction, put in patience drawn from your human experience, but the certain hope is given to you by God, truly showing you what is in HIS will.

So the prayer will turn into a simple request to God: God, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ my Lord and Saviour that my friend may, by YOUR will, receive that long-hoped-for job and be able to live well financially too.

Hope is therefore seeking the will of a Father who desires to satisfy his son or else to do something else that is in His will, so perhaps not doing it where his son is, but somewhere else in the world entirely and in a completely different way.

Sometimes OUR will is selfish , and even the prayer for our friend is asking for that job, in the place where we want it to be, with the hope that our friend won't move away from us.

God will surely want our friend to work, but He may have the will to make him work elsewhere, for a life plan of His. To simplify: I ask, God knows.

Our life was born in sin; our experience makes us mature things that in the end remain futile and make us feel futilely "arrived at the experiences of life", but not everyone clings to hope, that solid and direct hope through Christ that leads us to Peace, to God. In this case we can hardly hope that our real wishes are the same as His will. We shut ourselves in a whirlwind of faith that, like Massimo Troisi (the video suggested ironically in the first part of this article), makes us believe we can move vases and fix our life. I'm sorry, but it isn't so.

Faith is the hope of Grace in a world born in sin, and it must make us aware of sin, otherwise we won't even be able to recognise what grace is and what is the falsehood that enters our mind.

Next time we pray for our life or for the lives of others, let's try to set up a different relationship with God, to learn to clearly distinguish what is our hope and what is His will to be shown to us.

I want to close with this verse, which already shows us a different way of seeing prayer:

For this reason I tell you: when you pray and ask for something, believe that you have received it, and you will be given whatever you ask for.

Mark 11:24

Everything your heart is seeing in the right way, TOGETHER with God, ask for it and trust: it will come.

Remember: The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth (also translated with a sincere heart). He fulfils the desires of those who fear him; he hears their cry and saves them.
Psalm 145:18-19

May your hope and faith be renewed.

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