The next ‘key’ to walking a long obedience in the same direction is hope. Pain, suffering and disappointment in life is inevitable; hopelessness, cynicism and dejection isn't. Psalm 130 puts suffering front centre.

Eugene Peterson suggests that we must immerse our suffering in God...pray it, bring it to him, go there with God. We watch and wait, which ultimately means we hope. And our hoping is not in vain, it is “based on the conviction that God is actively involved in his creation and vigorously at work in redemption”.