Dominic Bnonn Tennant

It was a Friday when Sarah was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia. Although it is a common condition, it is also a very serious one—in the third world mothers die from it regularly, and although it is manageable given good medical facilities, there is still a degree of danger. For this reason, labor is generally induced very soon after diagnosis; the longer pregnancy continues, the higher the risk to both mother and child. This being the case, we knew that Sarah was likely to be induced over the weekend, so I called into work to let them know that I probably would not be in on Monday. The colleague I spoke to is a sympathetic soul, but he is not saved. As I was hanging up he said, “Good luck; our thoughts are with you.”

It struck me as I put the phone down how terribly sad it is that this is the best hope an unbeliever can offer another. Although it was he who was trying to comfort me, I felt that it was I who should have reached out to comfort him. His thinking about us would not keep Sarah healthy; wishing for it would not produce a safe delivery; and luck is just an adjective for whether an event is favorable or not. Yet unbelievers don’t just use these sorts of platitudes as window-dressing. They really mean them, and need them. Their best and only source of hope lies in the patently hopeless; yet they are willing to ignore this because they need hope so badly.

For my part, I had something infinitely more valuable than my colleagues’ thoughts and good wishes. I had prayer, and the prayers of my family and friends; and the assurance that a sovereign God who loves me and my family was listening, and working out all things for our good. In comparison, the platitudes of my colleagues, well meant as they were, were simply worthless to me. The good wishes of a million people might be behind me and I would despair but for my knowledge that God is behind me too. They could be against me instead and it would make no odds. It is only in the power and love of God that I can rest for assurance.

Now you might object, and I know that many skeptics will, that it’s easy to say such things in hindsight, after everything turned out well. It wouldn’t be so easy to write such a smug post if Sarah had died and I was an only parent with a baby in the critical care ward. But let me remind you of two things: Firstly, I didn’t know how events would unfold when I made that phonecall. I was not assuming that God would provide the outcome I was praying for simply because he loves me. I am not that naive. Indeed, although God has been immensely good to me, and the trials with which he has tested me have been meager in comparison to some, it is during those very trials that I have been most acutely aware of his loving providence and the over-arching goodness of his purposes. So if you wish to test the genuineness and strength of the hope that is within me, test it according to my reaction at the time—not afterwards when everything has turned out well. But then you will find no fault, for I obeyed Scripture’s command to not be anxious about anything, but by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving made my requests known to God (Phil 4:6). Not that I obeyed perfectly—but I obeyed. Secondly, how much stronger would my hope be if things had gone badly! If I were writing this with my wife in the grave and my baby in the hospital, would I need the assurance of God’s providence more or less? Do you think that my assurance is based on things going well? On the contrary! I could not have made the first point above if my hope were not prepared exactly for those times when things go badly. It is a hope based on the assurance of the ultimate wellbeing of all God’s people. The Bible does not teach health and wealth—quite the opposite. But it teaches that God loves his own, and answers their prayers; and so I have a hope both for the temporal well-being of my family, and a far greater hope for their eternal well-being in the resurrection, when that temporal well-being is taken away.

Is faith a crutch on which we lean in times of trouble, as some atheists sneeringly assert? You’d better believe it is. If you don’t, you don’t believe what the Bible says about it, and what hope do you have? Let the unbeliever mock, as Paul was mocked at the Areopagus, and as our Lord was mocked on the cross. His jeer is empty and his ridicule turns back on itself. Is he jealous that we have such hope? Let him join us, for it is offered to all. Is he angry that we believe what is false? Why be angry if it is not true? Is he afraid that we do not hope in vain? Let him fear no longer, but repent and believe. Is he contemptuous because he needs no hope for himself? What will his contempt gain him in the grave? For what reason does he rail against us? Does he despise those who admit their weakness? Or does that weakness imply error? But we have the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. We run the race with endurance, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith—who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of God on high. Our hope is built on nothing less than the knowledge that we will one day be there also.