we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
After meditating on this passage for a couple weeks, God has revealed to me my weakness in hoping. It is easy to hope in the coming of Christ and salvation because these things are clearly laid out in scripture. However, i have made a habit of not hoping for anything else. I do not hope or expect that He will fulfill the desires He has put in my heart out of fear of disappointment or doubt that it was He that put them there. Oh me of little faith! I pray for others in expectation of the good God will do for them; however when i pray for myself, i do not wait in expectation. Although thinking i was being practical and rational, i was actually laying out the desires of my heart as confessions of sin. "Here are the desires that You may very well have put in my heart Lord, please take them away." I am not giving God, my Father a chance to disappoint me, but i am missing the fact that He won't!
The greatest answered prayer of my life in Christ thus far was a resounding, no. I am grateful for that answer - in hind sight - as so much blessing and growth has come from it. But now i compare my juvenile 'first prayer as a Christian' to my now 4 years sanctified hopes.
In verse 5 (hope does not put us to shame, hope being an expectation and shame being hope deceived) we are told that our hope, which is the product of character, which is the product of endurance, which is the product of suffering will not be put to shame. This hope that has been purified under the fire of trial will not be put to shame. Now i am not a biblical scholar by any means, but to me this passage is pointing to our hope in Christ in Heaven, possibly leaving room for hope in earthly blessings but not directly; which doesn't really incline me to start hoping in anything more than eternity with Christ which is ultimate.
In overview i see numerous people in the Bible being blessed after God has made them small. I also see disciples suffering to their end. I see promises like,
My conclusion: I don't know... hope that God will fulfill the inconsequential desires of my heart knowing that regardless in the end i get Christ?
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I'm reminded of 2 Samuel 12. David and Bathsheba had a child, and God had said that the child would die as a result of David's sin. Although David knew this, he fasted and prayed every day for the deliverance of his child, right up until the baby died. Right after the child died, David arose, ate food, and worshipped in the temple.
I think our desires apart from things like sanctification and spirituality aren't necessarily "inconsequential," but we just need to examine ourselves to make sure they are secondary to the things we are told to pursue.
I like how you worded it - we hope that our desires will be fulfilled, but the reason for that hope, the reason why we have that confidence is because we've been promised Christ no matter what.
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