Subverting Anxiety with Hope

To be alive today is to breathe the air of an anxious world. On nearly every level of society, rapid, widespread, and disruptive change has taken hold. Of course, change itself is not a new phenomenon. The world has been changing since the beginning of time. But what is newer is the speed at which everything is moving and the rate at which we go through major transitions in our own lives.

In fact, author Bruce Feiler asserts that we undergo meaningful transitions once every 12-18 months..My Life in Flux co-author Lisa and I interpret this to mean that at any given time you’re either headed into, in the middle of, or coming out of a transition.

If to be alive today is to breathe the air of an anxious world, to be a Christian today is to subvert that anxiety with hope. Which is sometimes easier said than done—at least for me.

If to be alive today is to breathe the air of an anxious world, to be a Christian today is to subvert that anxiety with hope.

A God Who Labors

I’ll be honest, Advent feels like it’s right on time this year. Well, every year actually. It’s the crescendo of the calendar year when the activities are piled high and the mental to-do lists are looming. And yet, it’s exactly when God invites us to center ourselves on the hope that comes in the paradoxically ordinary cries of a newborn baby boy who is birthed into the world so that he might love it.

God is no stranger to birth. There’s an image-rich section of Isaiah that depicts God as a laboring mother. In the midst of the Israelites’ exile and longing, the book of Isaiah captures an active God like this:

For a long time I have held my peace,
    I have kept still and restrained myself;
now I will cry out like a woman in labor,
    I will gasp and pant.

                                                             Isaiah 42:14

About Israel, theologian Walter Brueggemann writes this, “The imagery of God panting in labor is a fresh datum for Israel’s faith. Something is about to be birthed; Israel has cause for exuberance.” For me, the visual of the God of Israel gasping and panting like a woman in labor is quite vivid.

New life is cause for celebration. Especially when we feel weary.

Change has its own labor process. If you’ve ever labored through it, then you know that disruption is a teacher. It’s often a place of new life and surprising growth. A place where hope is both fulfilled and birthed again.

A little later in Isaiah God is depicted as saying,

I am about to do a new thing;
  now it springs forth; do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
  and rivers in the desert.

                                             Isaiah 43:19

It is God who ushers forth water in the desert, the waymaker in the wilderness. Jesus is the greatest expression of God’s surprising way of doing things. Just consider the paradox of the ordinary arrival of a baby who has come to love the whole wide world.

We place our hope in the promise of God’s love. And because God has already made good on the promise of Jesus, we don’t have to hold back our hope in God. In a world in which nothing feels certain and therefore hope feels risky, we can freely abandon ourselves to God.

In a world in which nothing feels certain and therefore hope feels risky, we can freely abandon ourselves to God.

The Christmas Carol, O Holy Night frames hope like this:

Long lay the world in sin and error pining
‘Til he appeared and the soul felt its worth.

A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn’.

A thrill of hope—the sweet sense that something new is coming. That God has once again made a way in the desert.

Awaiting Hope

And, so in the midst of a rapidly changing world—one in which change is the new norm and our own lives seem to be in motion—the people of God are called to subvert the anxiety in the air with our hope in Jesus.

This hope is meant to guide every aspect of our lives. Our overwhelming jobs, complex relationships, hard decisions, and all the to-do lists of any day. When I say Advent is right on time it’s because it’s easy to lose sight of that hope amid the daily grind. So, thanks be to God for the vivid reminder that Jesus makes his way into the world. May we wait together for the thrill of hope that is promised to us. May we crane our necks to catch a glimpse of love in its greatest form. May we wonder about how God is also working in us to bring about a new thing in this season.

When you reflect on the change from the last year, what do you hope for now?

What does centering your hope on the love of God mean to you?

When you wonder about next year, do you have a sense of what new things God might be birthing?