Daily Devotion

“True hope is not about denying the suffering of history, but about refusing to believe, even in the deepest darkness, that darkness has the final say. Despair says, 'This should never have happened.' Hope says, 'Even if this happened, truth, meaning, and renewal may still follow.' Hope does not defend evil, but it refuses to let evil be the end of history."”

Joseph Piper · On Hope

Scripture

2 Corinthians 4:16–18 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. For we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen; for what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Reflection

True hope is not denying darkness, but refusing to let darkness be the final explanation. The external world does indeed decay, and life does indeed endure stress and wear. But the wondrous turning point is this: as the external world gradually decays, God continually renews us within. The issue is not whether there is suffering, but what we choose to focus our attention on. If we only focus on what we see, suffering becomes heavy and absolute; but when we learn to focus on what we cannot see, suffering is repositioned, no longer the end point, but a transition to glory, placed anew by God into a larger story.