I was sitting in a chair by the window when I realised something that I hadn’t really wanted to admit.

I was tired.

Not just I need an early night tired. Not I’ve had a busy week tired. I mean tired somewhere deeper. The kind of tired that doesn’t seem to disappear after a good night’s sleep.

And the strange thing was, I still believed.

I believed God was good.

I believed He was faithful.

I believed His promises were still His promises.

I believed the things He had spoken to me.

I hadn’t stopped praying.

I hadn’t stopped hoping.

I hadn’t walked away.

So why was I so tired?

That question bothered me. Because somewhere along the way I had absorbed an idea that perhaps many of us have absorbed: If my faith is strong enough, I shouldn’t feel this exhausted. But what if that’s not true? What if being tired doesn’t necessarily mean your faith is failing?

What if sometimes you’re tired because you’re still carrying your faith?

Hope isn’t always light

We often talk about hope as though it’s something light.

Hope lifts us.

Hope inspires us.

Hope gives us wings.

Hope is the sunrise after the darkness.

Hope is the helium balloon floating above us.

But I’m beginning to wonder whether biblical hope is much heavier than that. Because hope asks us to believe in something we cannot yet see. It asks us to carry a future we cannot yet hold. And that can be exhausting.

I’ve come to think that hope has more in common with an anchor than a helium balloon.

An anchor isn’t useful because it’s light. Its usefulness comes from its weight. It holds. It keeps something from drifting away. And perhaps there are seasons when the heaviness we’re feeling isn’t evidence that something has gone wrong. Perhaps the weight is evidence that something is still alive.

A dead hope doesn’t weigh anything. Only a living one does. That’s one of the strange things I’ve been learning. Hope has weight. Hope can make your arms ache. Hope can leave marks on your shoulders.

And sometimes the hardest part isn’t believing that God can do something.

It’s continuing to believe when you don’t know when He will.

If this speaks to you, you may like to check out the first chapter of my book, The Heaviness of Hope. I mean, you can buy the book; just click the title.

Or, you can read the first chapter for free here: Hope Sample.