As believers who have been rescued from the stereotype, we share a strong sense of passion for the possible, knowing there never was a night or a problem that could defeat a sunrise or a hope. As the unstoppable Helen Keller put it, “The world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming it.”

We all experience long and hard trials that are frustrating and disappointing. Even so, as Martin Luther King Jr. said, “We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose hope… If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose the courage to be – that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all.”

Hope is a spiritual commodity that is available to all believers. Hope is not based on circumstances. One of our readers shared with me a scene from the World War II movie, Dunkirk. Two soldiers are pinned down in a fierce firefight when one peers out to sea with his binoculars. “What do you see?” said the other. “Hope,” was the reply, because he was seeing a fleet of ships coming to their rescue. That is actually a hope realized. The circumstances are telling them something different from what they are currently experiencing. But real hope — the biblical kind of hope — is what operates when you don’t see anything through those binoculars but an empty sea, and yet your heart still believes. Real hope is a solid substance that is in your heart regardless. It is hope in the unseen.

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). Faith gives hope substance. It is the solid evidence in our hearts on which our hope rests. Hope by itself is no more than a wish, but hope based on faith is a solid reality. “For people like us in places like this,” hope grounded in faith is just what we need.

[Note: This particular concert video (click on the title below) features Robert Levon Been on bass and lead vocal. He is the son of Michael Been who originally write this song and sang it in his group The Call. Michael died tragically of a heart attack in 2010 while running sound in a concert in Europe featuring his son’s group. So when Robert sings “through the grief, through the heartache, through the tears” he is grappling on the spot with all those things in relation to his father’s death, and yet choosing to still believe, and still to sing his father’s song. It is indeed a poignant moment.]

I Still Believe

by Michael Been and The Call

I been in a cave for forty days

Only a spark to light my way

I wanna give out, I wanna give in

This is our crime, this is our sin

But I still believe, I still believe

Through the pain and through the grief

Through the lives, through the storms

Through the cries and through the wars

Oh, I still believe

And flat on my back out at sea

Hopin’ these waves, don’t cover me

I’m turned and tossed upon the waves

When the darkness comes, I feel the grave

But I still believe, I still believe

Through the cold and through the heat

Through the rain and through the tears

Through the crowds and through the cheers

Oh, I still believe

I’ll march this road, I’ll climb this hill

Upon on my knees if I have to

I’ll take my place up on this stage

I’ll wait ’til the end of time for you like everybody else

I’m out on my own, walkin’ the streets

Look at the faces that I meet

I feel like I, like I want to go home

What do I feel? What do I know?

But I still believe, I still believe

Through the shame and through the grief

Through the heartache, through the tears

Through the waiting, through the years

For people like us in places like this

We need all the hope that we can get

Oh, I still believe