John Townsend Offers Hope for the Hurting

I believe God specifically conveys promises of hope to people at particular times, which are for our hope. While we need to validate them through the doctrines of Scripture and through the wisdom of good people, these specific assurances can help us persevere in hardship. I have a friend who was in a bad financial fix with her adult daughter. Her daughter was a single mom, and, through financial hardship, lost her car. She couldn’t get to work. My friend didn’t have the means to get her daughter a car. She was worried about her daughter and her grandkids. She was praying about this situation and heard a voice say, “Candace is going to give your daughter a car.” And within 24 hours, her friend Candace had called to offer her daughter a car. Now, my friend is not prone to wild thinking. She is a very down-to-earth businesswoman. But she heard a voice. I pressed her on this and asked, “You mean a voice like you are thinking something in your head and it seems like someone’s voice?” She said, “No, I mean a voice outside my head but with nobody in the room.” That event gave her hope and, in fact, gave hope to all she told about it, including myself.

Heaven Can Wait Sometimes

There is a type of hopeful thinking that, in the service of heaven, negates the good things of today. These teachings are meant to provide hope in the future, but they are out of balance. The thinking is that life is terrible here, so we may as well suffer through it because heaven will be great and worth all the pain or that we should just be miserable and tolerate all the trouble and hang on for the sweet by and by. I think that is a really inferior way to get through a lifetime and one that the Bible doesn’t support. Certainly heaven will be incredible. It will be a place where everything is restored, and there will be no more hard times, pain or suffering. More than that, it is where our ultimate home is, for this world is not our home: “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil. 3:20, NIV). We are citizens of a future place we can hardly dream of. And certainly it will be much greater in quality than life here on Earth. Today’s life does not compare.

But that doesn’t mean we should have no expectations or desire for a great life here. That is just crazy thinking and, psychologically, it contributes to a passive and disconnected experience in life. Instead, you can truly have a life very much worth living. Your years here on the planet can be full of good things. Things such as an intimate relationship with God, deep and sustaining relationships with safe people, a mission and vision that is fulfilling for you and contributes to God’s purposes for the world, and a life that is satisfying, rich, and full: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10, NASB).

Obviously, this doesn’t mean that a great life is a pain-free life. It is a life in which the pain is intertwined with joy and good things but not overwhelmed by them. It is a life that is not defined by the struggles you experience but one that makes sense of the struggles and goes beyond them into your relationships, your mission and your purpose. You were not destined to have your struggle as your identity.

You probably have been through the exercise of figuring out what you want etched on your gravestone. It can be a helpful way to find perspective on your purpose in life. What you don’t want it to say is that your struggle controlled your very life, that it formed your entire identity and the meaning of your existence: “She was very ill.” “He was laid off.” “She never got married.” “They were in a bad car accident.” You want that stone to have different words: “He loved his family.” “She was a great leader.” “He followed God’s ways.” “She made a difference.” Please don’t misunderstand these thoughts. I am not at all making light of difficult times; they can be devastating. Your situation may be terribly desperate or terribly sad. And you need a great deal of help, support, comfort and resources to get through this. However, you were intended to be defined by who God made you to be and where you went with that, not by the hardships you’ll face.

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