A Man of Hope

To understand what a man of hope looks like, we must first understand what it is to be a man without hope. Just about any thesaurus you open will offer despair as hope’s antonym. Essentially, a man without hope is a man of despair; someone acquainted with grief, acquainted with pain—a man of sorrows. The question I have is this; do we truly understand the road of hope without first walking down the path of suffering? Who is the model of a man of hope? I would submit to you that the man of sorrows and despair, as described in Isaiah 53:3, is in-fact the very model of hope for every man. Isaiah 53:3 states, He [Christ] was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not (NIV).

I learned how to be a man of hope during the birth of my second daughter, nearly two years ago. She came into the world as a healthy 10 pound bundle. Shortly after her first nursing, she spit up a very unusual substance with the consistency and color indicative of a very life threatening condition. Moments after we alerted the nursing staff, those same nurses very calmly carried our baby girl to the nursery for what we assumed to be a routine assessment. Then enters a doctor, a specialist we’d never met before, making an awkwardly nervous introduction of himself and the new road of suffering we would embark on. As this neo-natal gastro-intestinal pediatric surgeon stood before my wife and me, he shared about the potential need for emergency surgery and a potentially life-threatening bacterial infection that could kill our baby. Needless to say, my hopes were shattered—everything changed. I was left in a position beyond my control and certainly outside of my own abilities to alter. Our daughter was segregated from personal contact for many days as she lived in an intensive care unit with younger and in some cases babies that were a quarter of her size or less. It seems almost paradoxical that she was in intensive care yet there she was with wires, tubes, and a device alarming every few seconds. It caused a death-like coldness to fall upon my wife and me as we tried to grasp our new reality. No David and Goliath faith for me, my flesh emerged and my spirit was crushed. I had no hope; I was broken.

With nothing else to lean on, I leaned across a granite sink in a hospital bathroom and made my own Garden of Gethsemane as I cried out to God with brokenness and exhaustion. I felt the Holy Spirit begin his work of comfort and peace as brothers and sisters visited, prayed and cared for our family. Later that week I was joined in the hospital by a close colleague and co-worker who arrived with a wife in premature labor. They had begun their own nightmare and God saw fit to have me walk as a man of hope, with this man of despair, as his premature child began slipping away and ultimately went to be with Christ. I learned how to walk with despair, even as I hoped for my own daughter’s healing. I was sensitive, open to it, I got it, it all made sense to me now because the hurt and pain was now an acquaintance and the outcome uncertain.

You see, God desires to use us at every stage of our own brokenness to minister as men of hope to those around us. Christ himself was a man of hope even while he was nailed to the cross. In his time of despair he reached out as a man of hope to one last man of despair who dared to believe in Him as THE man of hope. Days after walking with this co-worker and his wife, we began seeing improved blood test in our daughter, and x-ray films were coming back clear of any infection. Signs of life and normal behaviors began emerging. Our hopes moved from strengthened to restored as we were invited to hold our daughter a week and a half after her birth only to take her home days later for what has been a beautiful two years.

What is a man of hope? I believe it is a graduate from the school of despair. It is a man who learns obedience through his suffering and put his hope in Jesus Christ. 

What do you place your hope in?

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This has been a guest article by a great friend of mine 

and brother in Christ, M. Coffin.

Click here to see other great articles by this Author!

Learning to Cope

My wife and I had just started going to a new Church. We had just got married and moved to a new place in a different state. We had gone to about three churches up to the point, but we really hadn't found 'the one' yet. One Saturday morning, we literally looked online at all the nearby churches and one popped up that we liked. The next day we threw on our church clothes and we were off to a new place. God always has a great plan for you if you are willing to let him work. We sat down near the back and low and behold another young couple sat right behind us. (coincidence? I think not) After the service ended the couple introduced themselves to us and invited us to a marriage class with other young couples from the church. We said yes to the friends, to the class and to the church. This story introduces the friend that taught me how to cope, but I taught him first...

About a month after meeting these and other friends at this new church, my new buddy from that first day gave me a call to see if I could assist him with some work at their house. I had told him earlier that I was a carpenter by trade and he used it for his benefit, which was fine for my wife and me since we had no friends yet. It was later in the night, maybe 6 o'clock, but I grabbed my tools and we jumped in the car. I arrived at his house to find him working on some trim in a small room. He pointed out that no matter what he did, he could not figure out how to get the trim installed and fit together properly. The trim was actually crown molding, so I can understand the difficulty if not worked with before. I proceeded to tell him that the molding had been installed....upside down. His head dropped and I smiled. We had a good laugh about it and started to remove what was up so that it could be redone. I showed him how to properly install crown and also showed him how to COPE the ends so that they would have a nice clean fit in the corners. A cope in trim work is interesting, because you have to cut away the one piece so that it will fit perfectly over the other piece. They work great together.

So far you know about our church and a guy that I taught how to cope wood..

Well, a few years had passed since that wondrous night of trim coping magic. My wife and I still went to that same church, but our marriage had deteriorated immensely. No fault to the church though; we would go there and put on the church smile and attitude. We would talk the talk, but had drifted far from the walk. It got down to a point where I had had enough and finally wanted out of my marriage. I wanted nothing to do with it anymore; I wanted out. Well, this is where the coping skills come into play, no, not the ones that require a saw and a file, but true friendship. Cope means to, face and deal with responsibilities and problems in a calm manner. This is where my friend taught me how to cope. He taught me to look at the bigger picture in my life. What was I not doing? What was my walk with God like? Where was I putting my faith? It certainly wasn't in Christ and it was easy to tell by looking at my life. He was willing to sacrifice his time, he was willing to show me how my life was upside down and he showed me how to use a file on all my rough edges. He showed me how my marriage could be great, if my relationship with God was real and true. Although the molding may have ridges and valleys, you can still learn to cut the perfect cope. God truly works in wonderful ways. He knows the language that we speak and he uses it to speak right to us, even if we don't think we're listening.....

Christ taught him how to cope. I taught him how to 'cope'. He taught me to cope.

You may never know why Christ takes you down a certain paths,
But you can believe that it's for a bigger reason.

I'd love to hear your similar stories!