Hope Has Two Beautiful Daughters

“Hope has two beautiful daughters: their names are anger and courage. Anger that things are the way they are. Courage to make them the way they ought to be.” – Saint Augustine

I love this quote. Augustine was a great man of wisdom. Friends are naming their baby after him. I think that is cool.

He hits on something here that I have been wrestling with for sometime – this messed up world we live in, and my response.

It challenges me with the reality that things in this world are not they way they ought to be. I’m a “glass half-full” kind of guy and I don’t like thinking of what is wrong with things. But, I know this is true because the world is not like it was in the beginning and it is not like it will be in the end. We are living in a period of incredible brokeness and conflict.

It also challenges me with how often I lack this ‘beautiful anger’ towards the injustice in our world. I can blame this on my personality and my gifting (I am not a prophet or king but a priest) but I think it has more to do with my understanding of the glory of God and sin. I say that because the more I remember and realize that God is at work to bring His kingdom on earth – a kingdom of peace, righteousness, and justice – the more I want that and want nothing to get in the way of it. That then begins to stir in me a greater hatred toward sin – both personal sin and public sin. In many ways I feel like this is all new to me.

It also makes me thankful for those who seem to see things more easily from this perspective. Those, like a friend of mine, who lives in the innercity not so much because he “loves” poor people as much as because he hates seeing the injustice they experience. It is this burning heart for justice that drives him to risk comfort and fight for peace in his neighborhood. And, at the end of the day, he is truly loving them.

I am also thankful for those who are adopting because they are angry at the millions of orphaned children in our world and have the courage to add one more to their family that everyone around them (even in the church) says is full. I also think of the growing number of families adopting HIV+ orphans and those with severe medical needs. I think of two couples I know who have moved overseas to pursue their adoptions because things are not they way they ought to be.

Beautiful anger, beautiful courage, beautiful hope.

Lord, grant us more!