May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Romans 15:13
At this moment I am filled with immense gratitude. It began in this coffee shop, staring at a blank screen, waiting for a prompt. Then in my earbuds came along Brandon Lake and his song “Gratitude”. Yes, gratitude.
But because I am aware that many of you are not feeling grateful at the moment, I hear you. I have experienced it myself. Yes friends, there is heartache and pain all around us. Hurting marriages, diseased bodies, sin bondage, broken lonely hearts, lost souls everywhere. People are exhausted and some are flat tired of running the race. Hopelessness is becoming a common sentiment I hear among weary travelers. And to hear another precious created being express hopelessness breaks my heart. (A previous post on suicide talks more in depth about this https://michellehatter.wixsite.com/givengrace/post/suicide-one-action )
But in the middle of it all, in the mud and muck, there is a shining-everlasting-glowing-radiant guaranteed hope available to all who call upon the name of Jesus. He saves, redeems, restores, and rescues. So while gratitude might be my current writing prompt, hope is the holy result.
Or maybe hope is the foundation and gratitude the result. Either way, I am grateful for hope.
If we consider all the Bible tells us about hope, we can start by simply thinking of it as a confident expectation of something good; spiritually, it’s a confident expectation of good through God’s promises and faithfulness. For me, I think of Jesus fulfilling God’s promises and faithfulness, so salvation through Jesus is my hope.
Hope is a necessary element of our faith. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1 If we have no hope, our faith is in jeopardy. When there is even a mustard seed of hope, faith can thrive. Hope provides trust, which produces obedience, which produces refining and maturing in the Lord. Hope gives us a reason for the race.
…therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. Romans 5:1-5
It might be fair to say that hope is the foundation for the other elements of our faith such as love, peace, joy etc. It is essential for the proper aligning of them and so much relies upon it to have any meaning at all. Think about it, if we have hope, we have all we need in any circumstance. If we lose hope, we have nothing at all. Without eternal hope, even joy or peace are both fleeting and momentary.
Just as important to knowing its value, is understanding its enemy…doubt. So while we are learning to claim hope we must simultaneously learn to refute doubt. By eliminating doubt, we will give hope room to grow.
This also brings to mind how important hope is to balancing our emotions and feelings. If my hope is alive, I can better manage hurt, loneliness, anger and the such. But when hope is absent, those things can become a toxic reservoir where my soul can become fearfully anxious and depressed.
So, hope. It seems vital y’all. With it, we are able to endure much and be fully present in each moment. Better able to manage emotions and feelings. We can not hurry through this life - our hope lets us stay content knowing every moment God determines to be ours will be just enough and eventually Heaven will trump all moments.
What has been heavy on me lately is the hopelessness I encounter. How does one get to that place? Or how does one get to a place of hope? Like everything, we wish a quick fix would resolve this for us. Someone once asked me that with all the health supplements out there, why isn’t there a supplement for HOPE? Though she wasn’t being serious, still it perplexed her.
But where does this hope come from? Simply put: it comes from the creator of hope, God.
Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13
We can nurture hopefulness and choose to put it into action in our lives. We can lean on it, pray about it and preach it to ourselves all by reading the Word. But true eternal hope comes from God alone. It is a gift we are given through His Spirit, evident in His Word. From the beginning of the Bible to the end, 66 books contain promises and prophecies from God to His people. (That includes us y’all) And these are where our hearts can resolve to believe.
Over and over, we have clear illustrations of God proving Himself true, keeping His word, fulfilling promises and showing us how much He loves us. We are able build our faith on those illustrations and our hope can be found there. We have a Heavenly Father who has a plan for each of us, will bring it to fruition, will save us for His Kingdom and carry us lovingly home. The deal has been sealed. We can stake our life on it…Jesus did.
Hope, is a confident expectation of a desired outcome. So as a Christian, we are given the gift of eternal anticipation by way of God’s words and actions so far. What we do know of Him provides all we need to accept hope through Him. Similar to grace, it is accepting this free gift that He extends to us. Let’s just say to refuel your hope, study and remember WHO GOD IS. All the reasons to expect in the Lord are in the Bible.
So even when all else around you seems to be in ruins, if Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior, you still have hope. If you feel you’ve misplaced it, preach it to yourself. Remind yourself of what God has already done in your life and the lives of Moses, Abraham, David and soooo many others. Spend time in your Bible reading about who God is and the promises we have. Let hope fuel your endurance engine when you want to quit. While spinning plates are crashing down all around you, just remember Jesus is enough, and provides reason enough, to at least cling to hope. And even when the physical outcome isn’t what we “hoped for”, we still have eternity in Heaven where we, and our situation, will be made perfect.
Let the plates fall my friend, and hope with certainty there won’t be any shards in Heaven.
If we only have hope, we have enough.
We recall, in the presence of our God and Father, your work, produced by faith, your labor motivated by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Thessalonians 1:3
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