Romans 5:5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

Verses 3 and 4 of this chapter are justly famous, but I think this verse often gets overlooked, and it’s a very important truth. Hope is all very well and good, but very often things don’t turn out as we had hoped. This verse gives the key to dealing with that so that we don’t lose our fundamental hope when details don’t turn out as we would like. That key is grasping the love of God. When we understand how much God loves us, then we can trust that the “bumps in the road” are no more than that, and aren’t the disasters the world, our flesh, and the devil try to tell us they are. However, we can’t have such a revelation of the love of God apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, as this verse says. The key, then, to dealing with all the things mentioned in verses 3 and 4 is to open up to the Holy Spirit and allow Him to reveal God’s love to us. Otherwise, the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” (to quote Shakespeare in Hamlet) are going to generate depression and bitterness.

My wife and I are in quite a practicum in this very issue right now, with her facing two major surgeries on top of having Parkinson’s Disease. The temptation to focus on negatives, present or potential, is very real, but that is a bottomless pit. When I myself have to make a conscious choice to trust I can imagine how hard it is for her, when she has to deal with the present pain and with the fact it’s her body that’s going to be operated on. I need to focus on my own openness to the Holy Spirit, choosing to trust God, and I need to pray for her to be able to do the same. She generally does very well, but there are moments, particularly when the pain is severe, that it’s quite difficult. Well-meaning friends and family don’t help by focusing on temporal hopes. The key is in focusing on God and knowing that His plans are ultimately good, whatever they involve in the short run.

Father, help me be the husband, the support to Cathy that she needs, not lecturing her or taking her suffering lightly, but walking with her through all of this in trust and obedience, letting Your love fill us and carry us along by Your Spirit, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!