Hope to Go On
Paul Hirsch was forcefully thrown into the water by an exploding shell that totally destroyed the bridge of the SS Hurley . He remembered every horrendous detail: “My life jacket slowly raised me to the surface where I saw a scene from hell. The heat was intense and the sounds were unreal. Flames danced on the waves slick with burning oil, the ship was cracking to pieces, men were screaming.”99
With his ship destroyed by a German submarine, Hirsch began a twenty-one-day ordeal with twenty-three other seamen in a lifeboat designed for ten. Stranded in the mid-Atlantic outside normal shipping lanes, their chances of rescue seemed slim. As they grew weaker, the seamen seemed to sense that they were nearing the limit of their endurance.
At this stage, they began to pray. They prayed for the wounded and for each other. As they continued these prayers they came closer together and found hope to go on. Hirsch later recalled that they managed to keep their civility, their self-respect, and their courage. Above all, these men nurtured the hope that they would survive. Their faith was rewarded on the twenty-first day when a British freighter came over the horizon to end their ordeal.
God wants us to be hopeful in Him. Finding hope in all circumstances is a recurring biblical theme reflected throughout the Psalms; “Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord”(Psalm 31:24). “But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you”(Psalm 39:7). “For you have been my hope, O Sovereign Lord, my confidence since my youth”(Psalms 71:5). Our heavenly Father also sent his Son into the world to bring us an even greater and ultimate hope: that through him, we have a place in his everlasting kingdom.
We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us.
—Romans 5:3–5