Choosing Hope

December 1, 2025

Faith, wherever it develops into hope, causes not rest but unrest, not patience but impatience. It does not calm the unquiet heart, but is itself this unquiet heart in [all of us]. Those who hope… can no longer put up with reality as it is, but begin to suffer under it, to contradict it. [It] means conflict with the world, for the goad of the promised future stabs inexorably into the flesh of every unfulfilled present.”

– Jürgen Moltmann, Theologian

It’s not always easy to hear well this time of year, especially when it comes to hope. The dominant messages are about hope offering us calm: “The light will return.” “A new day is on its way.” “Justice and joy are growing in the womb and will soon be born.” Hope, from this point of view, is a voice that reassures. It’s a welcomed whisper that says, “Yes, the sky may be dark now. Yes, the road you’re on at this moment may be hard. But trust me, just over that horizon, there’s a new world waiting for us all.”

This soothing message comes to us as a gift. During dark days, we all get tired. The fruits of our efforts are hard to see. The cold seems to have set in deep. We feel small, and alone. So, the promise that things will change offers us relief. We are released from the burden of believing that “it is all up to me” or that it all must be solved now.

It’s a beautiful and needed message. But, as Moltmann and others remind us, it’s also only half of what hope is trying to say. Hope doesn’t just whisper “It will be different,” it also shouts, “It should be different” and “It can be different.” Yes, it speaks soothing words about trusting and waiting, but it also takes the form of a holy impatience that declares, “Enough is enough. The time is now!”

In other words, hope doesn’t just promise us that change will come in the future; it also changes who we are in the present. When we believe that a new day is possible, we don’t just sit down and wait to see what happens. We get up and go out to meet the light. When hope convinces us that there are unseen forces working for the good, we begin to look around more closely, and in doing so, we notice that darkness and pain are not all that is there. When hope’s holy impatience gets into our bones, we start acting as if we are worthy of that new day now. Which in turn changes others by convincing them that we all have waited long enough.

Bottom line: listening to hope, makes you dangerous, not just soothed! It doesn’t relieve us of duty as much as it reminds us that reality is more complex, unruly and open to change than the pompously powerful want us to believe. Yes, hope reassures, but it also emboldens. It doesn’t just offer us a promise; it gives us a push.

But all of this only happens if we listen fully. So maybe the most important question this month is: “Are we listening to everything that hope has to say?”

Questions for Considering Hope

This list of questions is an aid for deep reflection. How you answer them is often less important than the journey they take you on. So, read through the list of questions 2-3 times until one question sticks out for you and captures your attention, or as some faith traditions say, until one of the questions “shimmers.” Or as we like to say, “Read over them until one of the questions picks you.” Once you’ve identified it, go deeper by asking yourself:

What might my inner wisdom be trying to say to me through this question?
How might this question be trying to wake me up or get me to realize something through this question?

Was your childhood home full of optimism or pessimism? How has wrestling with that legacy shaped who you are today?
Who is hope for you? Whose way of being in the world helps you believe that tomorrow will be better? What small strategy might you employ to keep their hope front and center for you?
What might it mean for you to “be hope”? It’s one thing to believe in hope; it’s quite another to become it.
If hope could speak, what do you think it would most want to say to you right now?
If you could magically infect someone with hope, who would it be and why?
Might life be inviting you to bring an old hope back to life?
What is your cynicism protecting you from?
We all carry within ourselves the hopes and fears of those we’ve loved. Is it time to put one of those down so you can make your path your own?
How might surrendering an ego-driven hope for the future enable you to live more fully (and joyfully) in the here and now?
What would happen if your hopes suddenly grew one size larger?
Who carries hope for you when the weariness of the world wears you down? Who needs you to carry hope for them?
What dreams have you silenced in yourself because of cynicism?