Not all hope is good for us or can really sustain us. Just like empty calories will leave you hungry a few minutes after eating, there are kinds of hope that don’t deliver what they promise. Here are some of the kinds of unhelpful hope you’ll encounter in life.
False Hope
Hope is so important when we’re facing difficult trials that sometimes we grasp for a hope that isn’t real just to have something positive to hold on to. We will hear someone assure us that things are going to be OK, even if they have no basis for saying that other than wanting us to feel better, and we do feel some relief. At least that reassurance pulled us out of our funk and despair for a while. But this is false hope, and it functions somewhat like an antidepressant. It lifts us up and even energizes us; however, when it proves to be false, it can leave us worse off than we were before. Desperate wishing can inadvertently put words based on our wishes in God’s mouth, but these promises are not real and can leave us with a genuine sense of disappointment in God.
For example, a friend of mine, who was facing a terminal illness, was told by a Christian that she would be healed. That person said she had heard from God about my friend, and it was going to happen. Her family, of course, gained hope and encouragement, and life became better for a while. There are times when I have seen recovery like this happen, a true medical miracle. But, sadly, I have seen more cases in which, over time, sickness has taken the lives of my friends. The disappointment, confusion, and, worst of all, the doubt in God’s love that would remain in the family members’ minds was devastating. They sometimes felt set up by God, or, at best, that they were crashing after their well-meaning friend’s “sugar high” of false hope.
Sometimes the energy people gain from false hope will help them find an unexpected solution to a problem. For example, a man who loses his position at work may believe that he is destined to work in the same industry he was in. That may not be God’s plan for him, but he works very hard at networking, connecting and being assertive in his efforts. He doesn’t land in the same sector, but all his energy did lead him to something in another area that was good. So there is a sometimes-positive end to false hope. However, I think it’s much better to get the energy from true hope and not have to suffer the disappointment and questioning that comes afterward.
Psychologically, there is another type of problem hope called defensive hope. It is emotional in nature and sometimes leads to believing in false hope. With defensive hope, a person wants something to be true so badly and so deeply that she bypasses the evidence and reality and looks only toward the positive. It is a denial of what is based on need and desire. You see this often in people who have an addict in their lives. The addict uses, goes crazy, causes all sorts of damage, then promises never to use again. The family, not wanting to live in the nightmare again, believes the promises. And when the addict drops out of counseling and his recovery program, saying he doesn’t need it and he’s strong enough now, the family believes him. And when he uses again and crashes, promising afterward that he’ll never do it gain for sure, the family believes him.
This hope is defensive because the family is defending itself against what is true, which is that the addict is not in the program and, therefore, has very little chance of staying clean and sober. Conversely, true hope believes in what is real. If the addict were saying, “I hate what I am doing to myself and to my family so much that I’m willing to go to treatment until they say I’m done,” that would give them real hope for his recovery. Though he is still using, I would have hope for that person because I see a seed of hunger and need and honesty inside him. But if he is clean for a few weeks with no treatment and looks OK, I don’t ever have much hope. Like false hope, defensive hope is based on our wishes for things to be better with no foundation in reality.
Hopelessness
Hopelessness is the state in which we feel there are no good options, no good future and nothing positive to anticipate. Tomorrow seems as if it will be no better than today, and so do all the other tomorrows, day after day after day. Hopelessness can cause severe life problems. It can lead to helplessness, giving up, acting out, despair and losing one’s faith in God. The absence of hope in your life can cause your heart to weaken and become sick: “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life” (Prov. 13:12, NLT). It is a hard state of being.
I have experienced hopelessness in my life as probably everyone has. After I graduated from college, I moved about 1,500 miles away from my home and began working at a children’s home. I was a 23-year-old cottage parent for seven teenage boys. Needless to say, it was a very difficult situation for both me and the boys. There was constant chaos, impulsivity, violence and confusion. There are some people who did great work in this role, but I was not one of them. I just didn’t have the maturity or life skills to mentor these boys. I hope today that those boys have recovered from my working with them! So I lasted about a year and a half, and I finally quit the job because I simply couldn’t continue. I had no job, no income, no prospects, and I was living several states away from my family and friends. It was one of the worst periods in my life, a real time of hopelessness. In fact, I became depressed, and it took a while for that to be resolved.
Having said that, I would still take the discomfort of hopelessness over false hope or defensive hope. I know that may sound strange. Why would anyone choose the negative over the positive? But it is true. I say that because hopelessness has a value. Hopelessness in what is not real helps lead us to reality, and reality always leads to God. Reality is what is true; it is what is. When people say “It is what it is,” I resonate with that. God created reality. If something is real, even if it is painful, God is there. And I have seen so many people over the years who, having been let down by their false hope and their defensive hope, finally gave up and entered into the right kind of hopelessness. That is, the hopelessness that gives up on what is not real and what is not truly from God. We need to feel hopeless about things like our self-effort, our control over the universe, and our ability to do it all on our own. We need to feel hopeless about things like hoping against hope that things will magically turn out OK, or that thinking positive is all we need: “The king is not saved by a mighty army; a warrior is not delivered by great strength. A horse is a false hope for victory; nor does it deliver anyone by its great strength” (Ps. 33:16-17, NASB).
This sort of hopelessness helps us clean the slate and look for the One who provides real and substantive hope.
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