HOPE AGAINST HOPE

Nathanael's expectation was absolutely nil. He did not expect anything good to come out of Nazareth. It is so bad to have expectations based on things that you can not control, as well as having no expectations.

Although without expectations, as Nathanael came to Jesus.

"47 When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching him, he said of him: Behold a true Israelite, in whom there is no deceit. 48 Nathanael said to him, "Where do you know me? Jesus answered and said to him, Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you. 49 Nathanael answered and said to him, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel. 50 Jesus answered and said to him, Because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? Things greater than these you will see. "John 1: 47-50

source

Every Jew had a fig tree on the ground of his house, under which he sat to meditate on the prophecies, on the things that God was going to do. That is, Nathanael had been hoping that great things would happen; he had been reading the books, trying to know what was going to happen; he had been under that fig tree, dreaming, thinking when it would be the fulfillment of those things that he expected, when the Messiah would come, what would be the time of God. When he heard that Jesus was there, and that he was from Nazareth, he was left without hope because of his low expectations. Having low expectations of Nazareth, then, I could not wait long; for him, nothing was going to happen.

On the contrary, if we look at the life of John the Baptist, we see that he believed in Christ from the beginning. Since he saw it, he said: This is the Son of God, the Lamb. But, when he falls in jail, he asks to ask: Are you the one I thought you were? Then, we have one that had no expectations, and that has to do with God's hope so that then their expectations, based on hope, can be lifted; and we have another that had great expectations at first, but now that he was living things out of his control, now he had no hope. Both, men of God; each one in one extreme: One with low expectations, and another with high expectations; both living in uncertainty, in pain, without knowing what was going to happen.

Your expectations must be based on the hope to which God has called you. And the word says that that hope is Christ. Christ in you is the hope of glory. Lowering your expectations will not bring you security, but it will eliminate your faith; It will not make you live calm or happy, but it will stop the faith of moving and going to the place that God has for your life. Having the wrong expectations, the wrong ideas of what is going to happen, also leads to uncertainty. This happened to the disciples. All of them thought that Christ was coming to establish an earthly kingdom; That's why they ran away, when the Romans arrested him. If they had understood what they had to wait for, what they would see, they would not have been frustrated.

Hope is the certainty that, within you, there is the solution for everything you need. It is in Christ that our true hope is. When we do not understand this, we try to manage our mind, so as not to be disappointed; you lower your expectations, and you become a sarcastic, cynical person, a person who needs to be impressed because your expectations are so low, that everything you see you will see negative. In the same way, if you create the false expectations of life, when those expectations are frustrated, then you will lose hope.

In Romans 4, we are told about a great man of God, the father of faith, Abraham, and we are given a powerful statement, from when Abraham was at his worst.

18 He believed in hope against hope, to become the father of many nations, according to what he had been told: So shall your seed be. 19 And he did not weaken in faith by considering his body, which was already as dead (being nearly one hundred years old), or the barrenness of Sarah's womb. "Romans 4: 18-19

Abraham did not weaken in faith by considering his body, he did not lower his expectations by considering his body. Not that he denied that his body was already as dead, but that, in spite of his body, he believed; because it is not about denying reality, but about calling things that are not, as if they were.

To live a life of security, in the midst of all uncertain things, you have to consider stronger in your heart the promise of God, than your body already dead, than your circumstances. No matter what you see, consider it, but do not stop believing. Hope tells you that God has something bigger for you. Do not let circumstances make you lose hope. Your security is in the promise that God has given you.