The Power of Hope
Hunger Games is a trilogy written by Suzanne Collins. It is an engaging story in which the “Capital” – Panem – controls the districts through fear and intimidation. Each year, each district has to relinquish two “tributes” (a boy and a girl) to go to the “Hunger Games” (televised across the nation) and fight to the death, until the last man (or woman) is standing.
President Snow is the leading antagonist. In one scene, he is speaking to his head game maker, Seneca Crane. The conversation goes as follows:
President Snow: Seneca… why do you think we have a winner?
Seneca Crane: What do you mean?
President Snow: I mean, why do we have a winner? I mean, if we just wanted to intimidate the districts, why not round up twenty-four of them at random and execute them all at once? Be a lot faster.
President Snow: Hope.
Seneca Crane: Hope?
President Snow: Hope. It is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective. A lot of hope is dangerous. A spark is fine, as long as it’s contained.
Seneca Crane: So…?
President Snow: So, CONTAIN it.
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Yes, the power of hope. You have surely experienced that power. It sustains you when life rains down a storm – loss of a job, loss of a child, loss of a spouse, loss of health. Hope is the power that keeps your eyes looking forward, looking for the light at the end of the tunnel. It is not the only thing stronger than fear; so many Christian virtues, I think are stronger than fear, especially love (1 John 4:18).
But hope is, indeed, powerful. In the ESV, the word “hope” is found 84 times in the Old Testament, 84 times in the New Testament. One definition of the Hebrew word (tiqvah) is “optimistic outlook.” Another word translated “hope” is miqveh which can be translated “trust” or “security.”
While an atheist can be optimistic in his outlook on life, he has no one in whom to trust. Who guides his future? Who resolves his doubts? Who answers his prayers? He has no one. His hope is empty, baseless.
But for the Christian, we have a God in heaven who does answer our prayers, who removes our doubts, who guides our future. If hope itself is a blaze, to use Snow’s imagery, then the Christian’s hope is an inferno. It can consume all our fears, all our doubts. There is hope for a better life, a permanently blessed life with nothing negative to experience in any way.
Paul writes in Romans 8:25, “if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” In the same letter, he’ll describe our Father as the “God of hope” (15:13).
Hope is stronger than fear. It can blaze a light in your life, revealing the path to heaven.
–Paul Holland
