Rejoice in hope
From a sermon held in 1963
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So you fight and you struggle with that which has not yet been done, with those things that aren’t in order, with those thing that should be different. It goes slowly, it goes poorly and there is a lot left and its already taken a long time; it looks really dark. It looks so dark that it chokes out the joy over what He has done already. What is missing, this main thing, is joy in hope. And hope has nothing to do with the things that He has done already, with what we have already received and what has happened; it only has to do with that which hasn’t happened yet.
So, when hope becomes living and I am full of joy in my hope, then all that which is heavy and sad is simply evaporated. And then I’m full of joy in hope that all that which is not in order yet will come in to order, and I am full of joy over those things which are in order already, and then it’s just joy all the way around. My joy in hope releases a joy over that which has taken place already and then it becomes, double joy, joy all the way around. And joy in God is a phenomenal strength.
Precisely through this joy in hope, it goes top speed forward and that is something very different than things looking hopeless. And this is so foreign, and so unknown and so new, that it’s very difficult to come into joy in hope quickly. It takes its time. But the point is to get an understanding that my life depends on being full of joy in hope, and then I must seek it, and work with it, work on our soul’s salvation.
Everything depends on joy in hope. It releases all good things and it chases away everything that’s evil and dark and grey. Hope is one of the most wonderful, amazing things that exist on the earth. In heaven we do not need any hope; there everything is as it should be, in perfect order. But here during our pilgrimage, hope determines everything.