Daily Lesson for June 23, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 105 verses 12 through 15:

 When they were few in number,
of little account, and sojourners,
13 wandering from nation to nation,
from one kingdom to another people,
14 he allowed no one to oppress them;
he rebuked kings on their account,
15 saying, “Touch not my anointed ones,
do my prophets no harm!”


And from Romans Chapter 5 verses 3 and 4:

3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame.

Maya Angelou once wrote a book titled after a line in an old spiritual: "Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now".  What I take her to mean is that though she endured much hardship and struggle along her path, these were the things that made her who she was.  As the Romans lesson speaks today, it was Maya's struggle that gave Maya her sense of endurance and character and, ultimately, her hope.

Note the order of that. Hope is last -- the result of an enduring struggle. That means it is different from optimism.  Optimism is a favorable outlook based on what we can see.  I am optimistic that the sun will shine today. But hope is something stronger. Hope is what we have left when the sun has refused to shine.  Hope is still believing in the light, though it has been very dark for a very long time.

One of the most fascinating aspects coming out of research on this thing called Hope is that it can be learned and taught. Researcher C.R. Snyder studied hopeful people and discovered that hope is different from our feelings -- which we don't necessarily have much control over -- but is in fact a kind of mental process or thought framework. In short, hopefulness is a way of thinking about our world, ourselves, and our God.  The resilient among us -- those who have endured setbacks and traumas of many kinds --are those who have learned to see themselves as more than passive victims of whatever the days have brought, but have instead learned to think hopefully.  In other words, they've learned to think of the world as a place where right will ultimately prevail, to think of themselves as active agents of that goodness, and of God as the one who always tips the scales in favor of that goodness.

This kind of hopeful thinking can and is actually taught and passed down, in hopeful churches and synagogues, and in the words of hopeful people like Maya Angelou.

We wouldn't take nothing for our journey now -- because we know it's the journey that has taught us to think hopefully; and its our hopefulness that will teach others also.