The Scent of Hope

Hebrews 11:1 “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."

Excerpt from God in the Dark: 31 Devotions to Let the Light Back In, By Sarah Van Diest. Available on Amazon.com or NavPress.com.

[Written 2014] As I write this, there’s a shooter loose in a nearby high school. The only news that has broken the airways is that shots were fired. Hundreds of police and emergency responders have arrived, but parents and loved ones have no idea if the shooter has killed or injured someone they care about. As parents run to the barricades, police gently but firmly push them back. The parents are standing on the dark side of understanding. They are waiting in what must feel like a vacuum of hope.

Before we know that all will be well, there is darkness, deep and suffocating. We hide, curled up under the covers, waiting for confirmation of the news we dread. The feeling of certain doom overwhelms our rational minds and drowns us in the possibilities of things we fear. We hold on, with white-knuckled hands, to the only thing we know: life. The threat that it could be taken from us is more than we can endure.

But there is something else in that darkness. It’s always been there, but our panicked hearts haven’t slowed down enough to recognize it.

It’s hope. Faith. Belief. More real than our present circumstances.

It takes belief to smell the perfume of hope at times like these. Hope is aromatic, a rose grown in the deepest of wells. It thrives in the absence of exposing, disclosing, unmasking light, and inhaling its fragrance takes faith. Our eyes can’t see it, can’t detect it, won’t prove its existence. We can’t see hope. We can only believe it. And though we would prefer to see with our eyes and know for certain what’s to come around the corner, there are times we cannot see and cannot know. In the absence of proof, faith makes itself known. When there is no hard evidence, we rely on belief. Hope doesn’t blast us with gale-force winds, but instead ekes through the crevices of a cave on a cold breeze. It is small but certain. It is a scent that, once detected, strengthens and intensifies—but in the moment we revert back to trusting in what our eyes see, the scent disperses.

But oh, hope is the sweetest scent. It comes from a place beyond us. Hope is the aroma of Christ, and we can find it only in him. Our present reality produces no such fragrance.

The writer of Hebrews brings this irony to light in this verse: “By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible” (11:3). We most often place our faith in this visible world. After all, we can prove this realm by what our eyes observe. But where did this observable world come from? Where did that which we see originate?

Everything we see came from the invisible—from the word of God. But we mistakenly put our faith in something that came from “nothing” rather than in him who created it.

This world as we experience it, our temporal existence, is a vapor. Hevel in Hebrew.[i] Smoke. The thing that is more real is that which we cannot see: the word of God . . . the aroma of Christ. Hope. Nothing this world has to offer has more permanence than the invisible.

Satan has done a masterful job of turning reality on its head. Our dependence on the physical realm is evidence of this. When circumstances threaten our lives and the lives of those we love, even to small degrees, we scurry into the dark places. We hide and wait. Fear sets in. Hope vanishes.

I do this more often than I like to admit. Dark seems to be my go-to place. But when I find myself again in those dark places, I want to make a different choice: I want to close my eyes and inhale deeply; to search, with a heart full of faith, for the scent of hope; to reach out for God. If I do that—when I do that—I will detect the aroma of Christ, awakening the other senses to the reality of the truth surrounding me. Faith will help me see the world that is more real than I think I know.

My friend, if you lean not on your own understanding, but trust, believe—then you will begin to understand what it means for the things of this earth to grow strangely dim. Anxiety, fear, and doubt will melt away as the perfume of hope overtakes your need for certainty.

This isn’t a recipe for all things to work out as we wish. Hardly. I think choosing hope is more in line with becoming sanctified. As we turn away from the lies that keep us in the darkness, we walk closer to the truth, to our Father. As we choose hope, the covering cloak of fear falls off. As we understand more of who our Father is and what his heart is, rest overtakes anxiety.

Take courage. Even the darkest night and the thickest air can be penetrated by the scent of hope.

Sarah

[i] 1892. hebel, BibleHub, http://biblehub.com/hebrew/1892.htm (accessed August 9, 2017).

Sarah Van Diest is a writer and editor. She's the mother of two boys, stepmother to three more, and wife to David. Sarah wrote this book as letters to a dear friend whose life was turning upside down. She's done this for years for numerous friends, and will continue to, Lord willing. It's her gift to them. It's hope written down.