“Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.”
AUGUSTE RODIN

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we not stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.”
ROMANS 5:1-2 NIV

A long as I can remember, having peace in my life was one of my goals. I haven’t always set out to have peace, but the stress of turmoil and disagreements always makes the serenity of peace desirable. There is nothing like the feelings of peace that flood in after some disagreement has been resolved. Hassles seem to drain our heart of peace, serenity, and the rest that we find in knowing that life is explainable, and the way it should be. Many times we have to work for the peace and serenity that we have. Often we must give up our feelings and give in to other views to have peace and serenity. Often there is pain to be experienced before peace can enter. From my own experiences I have found that humility often walks ahead of serenity, and that pain often walks ahead of humility. Once again I will say, “many times we have to work for the peace and serenity that we have,” but in the spiritual this is not the case. The apostle Paul said, “Since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” No work, sweat or toil in that. But it is not necessarily something easy to do; it’s simple but not easy. There was a time in my life when I worked very hard to have peace with God. I was a vegetarian and did not eat meat for over two years; also I practiced yoga, breathing exercises and meditations daily. This was all an attempt to empty myself, and to reach a higher plane of existence. All of this work that I was doing was physically good, but spiritually I could not empty myself by myself. Wherever I was, there I was. Any guilt and remorse I had from my life up to that point always followed me around, and therefore any peace and serenity that I found was shallow. Only after being weighed down by my own attempts to find peace in God, did I come to the understanding that Jesus accomplished on the cross what I could not do for myself. I was forgiven and had “peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Today regardless of what may happen in my personal life, the peace I have with God is solid. It is built upon the spiritual principle of forgiveness, God has done for me what I could not do for myself. ……..JRE

Please share with me what Lawrence O. Richards has to say about Romans 5:2, “We rejoice in the hope.”

Don’t let the word “hope” throw you. In our language “hope” is a word that suggests uncertainty. “I hope I’ll be able to go with you,” means I’d like to, but I don’t know if I can. A young woman’s “hope chest” was traditionally a place where she stored precious items she would use when, and if! she married. “Hope” to us is a maybe kind of thing.
But it is not this way in the New Testament. In fact, it’s just the opposite! Hope (elpis) is the settled and confident expectation that we will obtain a future good. Hope is being sure that what God has promised will be ours, even if today we only glimpse it from afar.
What a blessing to remember as we read the New Testament. Because of Jesus, we have hope. We know that we have a share in the glory of God.
LAWRENCE O. RICHARDS

“The practical answer is that since these things have happened among us, they can happen with you. Should you wish them above all else, and be willing to make use of our experience, we are sure they will come. The age of miracles is still with us. Our own recovery proves that!” ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, page 153

Greetings,

May i be so bold as to include another account of hope? It is something I remember from Rinpoche Chogyam Trungpa, who is in the Tibetan school, articulate that hope is intimately connected with fear. I like this recognition. In "Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior", he said something like there just not being a place for hope, when in terms of an action one can know. I like that too, and since reading it a few years ago, my fear has been very deeply overcome. It's a little at odds with the reading that hope is a very good thing, but because it says hope is not what we finish with. That it too can be overcome is a part of something more inclusive. Like anything worthwhile, there is a time and a place for it - a time to rejoice in the hope, and a time to rejoice in the glory. The time to rejoice in the hope of the glory, strikes me as too desolate, but it sure serves its purpose.
By the way, my bible at present does not contain Romans at all.

Thank you for your kind words.............May God bless and prosper you in all ways.