Faith is about the story in which our understanding of self and others is embedded. It’s about the implicit beliefs that guide our actions, our self talk, our narrative, our engagement with others, and the contribution we make to this world of things, and possibilities, and new journeys.
Love is the outworking of that story, the way we see others, the openness (or otherwise) to the other, and to the process of embrace and engagement and participation that in and of itself opens up a world of possibilities. We engage others according to the faith story by which we live. Not the story we espouse, necessarily, but the one that guides us at a deeper level. What we truly believe will be evidenced by how we engage others in love, and how free we are to treasure their otherness.
Hope is that vision we have of “future”. Not THE future, but future — possibilities, innovations, restorations, collaborations, new life, new things, new opportunities. It is the deep-seated belief that THIS, whatever this is, is not the end, that ALL THINGS can become new. There can be birth from barrenness. There can be new growth from devastation. There can be new life from death. There can be reconciliation from division. What we do with this belief, what we envisage and what we build, reaffirms the story in which we locate our understanding of ourselves and the world. The person who lives forever hoping in new life, restoration, reconciliation, and enters that world with curiosity and wonder, is a person with a deep-seated belief in a wonderful story, a story that also guides how they engage with others in love, which is the tangible, actual, NOW incarnation of the story and the foundation for hope.
Burning Belly 