The Material that Hope is Made Of

My belief is in the conviction of God’s goodness and my hope is the reminder of his grace.

Hope is a fascinating word, yet so wrongly defined in our westernized minds. We think of hope as something wistful and vague; like that young nurse in some Hollywood flick looking after her love as he slings a gun over his shoulder and marches out with his battalion, she is left standing there hoping that he will survive. Or hope is a word written on a porcelain Precious Moments® figurine that we give to relative in the hospital post-surgery. Hope. Our culture has redefined it from it's original meaning. Hope is not tentative and it does not leave room for uncertainty.

Hope comes from something deep, soulish conviction inside. Col. 1:5 states that faith and love springs from the hope which is stored up for us in heaven. Don’t you see? Hope reminds us of the joy that is set before us now and in the Age to come. Romans 4:18 says, “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed…” And later is says that that belief was credited to him as righteousness.

My belief is in the conviction of God’s goodness and my hope is the reminder of his grace. Even when something seems impossible or overwhelming or just plain confusing I can cling to that hope, because when I do, I am choosing to look to the Lord and say, “I trust even despite the impossibilities.” And with this attitude of hope we give him glory because we are choosing, just like Abraham, to hope against all hope.

Someone said to me recently, “You can’t shorten your wilderness, but you can lengthen it.” I wonder how many times we lengthen our wilderness seasons just because we give up hope too quickly. I wonder: did Joel lengthen his wilderness by giving up hope? It makes me wonder, if even in those wilderness times when everything seems “against all hope” God is still asking me to hope because it reminds me of the joy set before me. Titus 2:13 calls Christ’s appearing our “blessed hope”. How awesome! When Christ returns for his saints, when we meet him in the air, we will see our blessed hope with our own eyes!

So keep hoping. Seek to know the faithful God in whom we place our hope and Jesus Christ our Eternal hope and salvation!

Your Hopeful Friend,

Bethany