Living in the Rainbow

I first came across Steve Curtis Chapman’s song With Hope a few months ago and was immediately arrested by it.  I didn’t really know his music before but the words of this song hit me right between the eyes.  A couple of searches on the web revealed that his youngest daughter had been hit by a car when her elder brother was backing out of the drive.  She was killed.  This was just a few days after her 5th Birthday.  What a tragedy.

Here are the full lyrics.  Just because of this trauma I have been lapping up SCC’s music over the past few months.  See other post about his song Cinderella.  There is something special about the beauty of life and faith when it is laced with tragedy and suffering.  I think it gives it a level of authenticity that would otherwise be missing.

In this song SCC is honest about the pain, the lack of understanding, the questions, the doubts, the grief.  But this is all laced with hope.

The bible talks about hope a lot.  1 Thessalonians 4v13-14 says:

Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.

And Romans 15v13 says

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The kind of hope expressed by SCC in this song is not easy.  The circumstances on the ground scream in protest against this hope.  There is a complete contrast between what is seen and experienced all around and what is hoped for.  We see death, we hope for resurrection life.  We experience grief, we hope for joy.  For some this questions the validity of the hope.  But the bible tackles this dilemma head on and says we should expect this tension.  Romans 8v24-25:

For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.