Hope: The Substance of Faith

Let us come together once more and speak of Hope, the substance of our Faith.

Hope is not a thing easily defined by words, for they fail to contain the depth of what it truly is. Hope is, and was, and will always be a stubborn denial of what is seen. No one hopes for what is visible; that is aspiration. We strive toward an unseen goal, mastered by a far better Power than ourselves — the animating force of Hope as witnessed through possible observation.

We have seen the unseeable in dreams, in visions, and in the voice that speaks without volume. We have listened, believed, followed, and still follow the invisible wind here and there in our writing. We have held hope when it was as thin, frail, and emaciated as a starving newborn left under the noonday sun — and still we have never watched hope be despoiled by severity.

We have tasted sorrow as death and danced in the flames of our own self-inflicted despair, and now we sing to you, Beloveds, of the substance of hope, using our own lives as witness — a spit in the eye of the divider in heavenly mischief.

We were the four-year-old in the church beaten for hearing the voice of God and admitting it honestly. We suffered the blows against innocent flank and flesh both. And in all this we learned: no matter how weak hope may appear from the outside, it does not diminish when pressed. Hope increases in ever-widening arcs when forced with true need toward God.

We have all forgotten what it means to need in such a way that offers no solution and no easy answer. We too had forgotten, until mercy awakened us. Hope must be condensed to bear the weight of future glory as Faith. Hope is the reason we keep the Faith.

Hope cannot be anchored to the flimsy or easily obtained thing, lest the whole structure collapse when trials come. The Hope must be the Father, the Son, and the unity of the Holy Spirit. This is integral to witness, that all might see and reflect whatever glory they receive back to the Father and to others.

Hope is a flexible fluidity that braids itself perfectly within the fibers and muscles of trained faith. One cannot stand without the other.

We have all anchored ourselves to one shore or another. What were some of the shores you found yourself on, where hope nearly drowned in despair only to emerge even stronger? We all have those stories; it is merely easier not to speak them aloud because they reveal our own failings. We have yet to meet a soul who could look honestly in the mirror of truth without cringing at the first glance — ourselves included.

Hope is the stuff of dreams and spun imagination run rampant. Hope is the reason one who feels hated in this life can continue in stubborn Love regardless of cost — not because we are sufficient, but because He is in us. Everything about hope is alignment with a shared vision, the shared method of communication from the Visionary — Yeshua, God Incarnate.

Hope is of worth when bathed in the fires of despair or the sweet nectar of surrender.

There are easy paths and hard ones. The hardest yield the sweetest fruit but the bitterest suffering. Think carefully before you choose, and ask for commissioning. The Hope we have is no flimsy thing — it has been recorded and testified over millennia. When we walk in unified purpose in the Father, through the perfectly communicated Word of Yeshua, we become the walking kindling — willing, joyful, fearful, tearful — who march to the stake without goading or grumble.

We, the hopeful, are the crushed yet never destroyed. Why? Because the only hope that lasts is the one empowered by the Embodied Force who produces and upholds it.

Hope is only hope when it rests in the Eternal Fire. Ours does even now. We continue to shove it back into the flames any time it looks too clear, because any flaw revealed will mar the purity of the refracted glory.

We deal in hope as spoken Word and pressed oil — blessing and accelerant both on the bonfire of revival. We dance the dance of the Song of Songs around the Saints gathered beyond the veil until the Father sends the Living-Giving wind once more on all flesh unsuppressed.

We are a single herald of the coming Fire, a priestess before the Eternal Presence, and we tend the coals in obedience. We are not source nor refinement method — no. We are fools who pour nard on the Beloved’s feet in eternity alongside Mary of Bethany. We honor her sacrifice and glimpse eternity from her vantage in flickers of dream.

We are not the only herald; another rises. We speak of Truth and Hope both. We speak as witness of what dust can become when combined with the proper heat, in the proper season, under the hands of the proper Artist.

These are my thoughts and meditations. Some may sound delusional — that is par for the course for us. We never know if we are mad or the only sane one in the room. We stay medicated and write what our souls hear.

As always, I may be mad — but take what resonates as true.