Working at a peacebuilding organization during times of war, genocide, and political upheaval is a strange kind of calling. At Telos, where I serve as director of marketing and communications, our mission is to equip communities to be peacemakers—working across lines of difference to help all people live in safety, freedom, and dignity. Ultimately, my job is to pay attention—to not look away, even when I desperately want to. I track bombings, read the stories of displaced families, and watch footage I can’t unsee. And then, somehow, I try to help others care, too.
Most days, it feels like we’re screaming into the void. Recently, I had been feeling burned out.
In one of those moments of despair, my coworker Ryan said something that broke through the noise: “We have to lead with hope.”
That line cracked something open in me. I realized hope doesn’t have to be grand or sweeping—it can be as small as noticing the leaves on a tree, or relishing the bright laughter of a baby. Hope is the levity that makes the hard work of peacemaking possible. Peacemaking isn’t a posture for idealists; it’s the narrow path of discipleship.
Peacemaking is hard. It’s not sanitized or sentimental. Real peacemaking requires getting close to the pain. It demands that you listen to people you vehemently disagree with. You have to sit in the discomfort of this disagreement before you defend your position, address injustice, and invite others to change their minds and behaviors. Above all, we have to anchor our peacemaking in hope.
As human beings, we must continue to believe in and fight for a world that promotes safety, dignity, and peace for all people.
As human beings, we must continue to believe in and fight for a world that promotes safety, dignity, and peace for all people.
And while I believe this is the world we should all hope for, I have been feeling burned out over the overwhelming injustice that we are currently facing. Whether it is the U.S. immigration crackdown or the ongoing violence and displacement in Israel/Palestine, the injustice of the world feels especially acute.
Our fates and the healing of one people cannot come through the harm of another.
We live in a time when many good, kindhearted people look out at the world and feel hopeless. They see war, polarization, hunger, and ask: What can I do? What can one person possibly do? This often leads to a feeling of paralysis. Silence. A deep ache that never quite translates into action.
And yet I believe that doing something is better than doing nothing. Because systems of oppression and violence don’t just thrive on power; they also thrive on silence. They grow stronger every time a well-meaning person chooses inaction over imperfect action.
What I’ve been wrestling with is this: Maybe the work of this moment—especially for Christians—is not to indict each other into action, but to call one another to anchor our actions in hope. Not the kind of hope that distracts or glosses over pain. But the kind of hope that rebuilds agency. The kind of hope that tells the truth about the bleakness of our world, but still insists that something can be done about it.
Christ was a peacemaker, a changer, and a warrior for justice. He fought for the orphan and the widow, the poor, the outcast, and the oppressed. He challenged systems of oppression, but the way he challenged those systems was not by raising an army to overthrow Rome. Instead, Jesus understood that change comes from the inside and then externalizes (Luke 17:20-21). No amount of political activism can heal what is broken if people themselves are not changed. As the late theologian Walter Brueggemann observed in The Prophetic Imagination, social action separated from questions about God and community is like a “cut flower without nourishment.” That is the great paradox of the gospel: The revolution is not just external—it’s internal, relational, spiritual.
In short, yes—Christian leaders should be showing up right now. And yes, many are not. But what if naming their failure isn’t the most effective way to invite them to join the struggle for a more just world?
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What if, in this moment, the thing that people need most is to be invited to hope?
How can anyone be expected to encourage others if they themselves feel hopeless? And to be fair, this hopelessness is—at times—self-inflicted. We have insulated ourselves from other people, distracted ourselves from pressing issues, and numbed ourselves to the point of inaction. But God is not a God who distinguishes between the effort it takes to pull out a single hair and the effort it takes to move a mountain. When change happens—true change—it is always miraculous. It is always holy.
Maybe speaking hope into leaders who feel helpless will do more than naming their silence ever could.
When people feel hope, they feel agency. And when people feel agency, the only thing left to do is act. And when people act together for good—however small, however imperfect—that’s when miracles happen.
To be clear, I’m not advocating for silence in the face of injustice. Nor am I suggesting we coddle power.
What I am saying is this: Fear does not inspire conviction or transformation. But hope does.
When we offer hope—not as saccharine optimism but as an act of moral resistance—we invite people back into the story. We remind them that even the smallest act of love carries the spark of the Divine. This is the heart of the gospel: Jesus didn’t only command us to love our enemies; he lived it. Every healing he performed, every welcome he offered, and every table he shared revealed that love is not one part of our calling but the entirety of our calling.
When we offer hope—not as saccharine optimism but as an act of moral resistance—we invite people back into the story.
I think of Jesus telling stories about how the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed or like yeast—how it’s the small, barely visible acts of hope that shift the substance of things. That’s what I mean by hope. The kind of hope that whispers: You’re not powerless. Your voice still matters. Your choices still matter. The story isn’t over.
So, right now, what does it mean to lead with hope?
It can look like listening. Or sharing one difficult truth on your social media feed. Maybe it looks like showing up to a vigil. Or praying out loud when no one else will. Or reaching out to a friend who’s grieving. Maybe it looks like talking to one person you disagree with. Hope can even look like calling your representative.
It’s not everything. But it’s something. And in a world paralyzed by perfectionism and fear, doing something hopeful is a sacred act.
We don’t need perfect language. We don’t need flawless strategies. We just need people who are willing to step forward.
So if you’re reading this and feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of the world’s pain, remember that hope isn’t a feeling but a practice—it’s what you do and what you invite others to join. In moments like these, hope is not optimism but a commitment to defying injustice, a belief that something sacred can grow even in the desert of despair.
Marion Sarkisian Ramón Pareja is the communications director at The Telos Group and shares reflections on faith and radical hope at Inheritance.
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