Is Hope Worth the Risk?

The Allender Center Podcast

The Allender Center

Psychology, Religion & Spirituality, Mental Health, Christianity, Trauma, Health & Fitness, Theology

4.6 • 628 Ratings

🗓️ 3 January 2025

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As we think about the upcoming year, we know that hope can feel elusive. Weighed down by uncertainty, exhaustion, and a world filled with division and stress, it’s easy to wonder if hope is even worth holding onto.

Hope carries heartache. Longing for something better can feel vulnerable, especially when past disappointments and cynicism weigh heavy on our hearts. It can feel safer to let go of hope than to risk the ache of unfulfilled desire.

But as Dan Allender shares, hope isn’t passive or naïve. It’s “a kind of patience that does not erase desire, but has a resilience to remain in the movement toward the dream that hope holds, with a kind of defiance—a willingness to say, I don't just wait passively, I wait in a way in which I'm willing to risk on the anticipation of the arrival of what my heart most deeply desires.”

Hope doesn’t deny the pain of the past or present; it’s a courageous choice to believe in the future possibility of good. And it often begins small—a moment of gratitude, a glimpse of beauty, or the connection we find with others.

This year, we can choose hope—not because it’s easy, but because it opens us up to something deeper, truer, and worth desiring.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Have you ever felt like you were living a narrative that someone else wrote for you?
0:07.0	Maybe your story was written by your family, your church, or your culture.
0:12.0	You may be asking yourself, what is my story, and how does it uniquely fit into the story of the gospel?
0:19.0	At the Allender Center, we believe that your story reveals God's wild goodness in a way
0:23.9	that no other story can.
0:26.4	We've helped thousands of people understand and live their unique stories, and we'd like
0:30.8	to invite you to start engaging your story with the free guided exercise available for download
0:36.0	at the Allender Center.org slash story. Thank you for listening to the Allender Center podcast.
0:57.2	I'm Dr. Dan Allender.
0:58.9	And I'm Rachel Clinton-Centen.
1:00.6	We're fiercely committed to providing hope and healing to a fragmented world.
1:04.9	And restoration for the heart.
1:07.2	Thank you for joining us.
1:08.8	Let's get this conversation started.
1:25.0	Rachel, there are times where you get things in the mail and you're surprised.
1:26.6	Would that not be the case?
1:28.5	Every once in a while, yeah.
1:37.8	Well, I got a package, and it was one of those gifts that as I open it, I'm looking for who sent a gift.
1:38.4	It's Christmas.
1:41.8	So you think it's a gift from one of my family. But there was no mention as to who sent it.
1:48.2	But when I opened it up, it was a lovely gray sweatshirt.
1:52.1	And on the front were these four letters, H-O-P-E, Hope.
	...

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