“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.”
Hebrews 10:23 NIV
I like words. It may seem like an odd interest, but something about the combination of certain letters attracts my eye and tends to pique my attention. So it is most mornings as I pour over scripture with that first cup of coffee, single words stop me dead in my tracks.
The unknown author of Hebrews hit the brakes on my morning devotion with the word selection found in the passage listed above. It is not the overarching message of the passage that stumps me. No, I can get along with holding onto hope. I can connect with a God who is faithful to his promises. My inner wordsmith reading along inside my brain bumps into a word like “unswervingly” and I am “on hold one minute”.
Why that word? Why that particular adjective to describe holding onto something that is not something we can even tangibly hold?
So the search begins. How do I hold “unswervingly” to something without substance like “hope”?
“Unswervingly”, much like it sounds, means to not deter from course, to not turn aside. While not the nugget of etymological gold I went in search of, it was nonetheless what I needed.
Hope is hard to hold onto, especially when our hope is anchored to a promise. It is not that we consciously believe God is unfaithful, it is that we often get tired of waiting for our promise. Our impatience drives our direction and instead of holding onto the hope, we re-direct our path in search of immediate return on something less hopeful.
Often hope feels like a squirmy toddler who has just learned to crawl. Filled with excitement of their new found mobility, the child no longer wants to be held. Now distracted by every shiny thing that this mobile child now knows it can reach, the little bundle of joy becomes the equivalent of trying to wrestle an alligator. Fatigued from the fight, often the parent relents, letting the child loose. I wonder how many times our arms have fatigued from holding a hope that has yet to come to pass but became hard to hold. Worn out from a promise fighting to get loose, we lose grip, we lose heart, we let go.
This is where “unswervingly” enters the conversation. An unswerving hope holds on. An unswerving faith, believes a little bit longer. An unswerving belief knows that one who promised is faithful to see it through.
The temptation will be to set your hope down in order to pick up something easier to carry. Do not let go. Do not swerve off course. If God promised it, God will fulfill it. Just hold on to hope unswervingly!
It wasn’t until my teen years that I really got to know the Jacobs’. We had always lived quite a distance from them. That changed after the divorce of my parents and mom moved us closer the Windy City family. What my childhood summation proved out was that Grandma loved Jesus and Grandpa liked her going to church.
