Believing in Hope: A Meditation on Hope, Expectations, and the Nature of Faith

In this article, Joseph Lehmann describes the experience of the tragic death of his wife and the many forms of well-intended but often misguided counsel that he received from fellow Christians. Lehmann presents his growth in understanding the nature of faith and hope. He argues that faith demands a hope that transcends time and space. By the same token, however, this eternal hope must, at some point, in some way, intersect life in the here and now. Lehmann concludes that we often jeopardize the faith of other believers when we fail to carefully define how God has promised to treat us in the here and now.