This past weekend, it seemed that the recurring theme that the Lord continued to lay upon my heart was hope. In the world we live in, certainly there is a lack of hope. When sickness comes and won't go away, when children run from God, when finances are in the pit, when jobs come to an end, and when marriages are hanging on by a thread, it would seem that life is hopeless.

How about you? Does life seem hopeless to you?

I began to think about this word "hope" and what the Bible has to say about it and discovered that the hope we have in the world today is cross grain to the hope of the Scriptures. Our hope today is more like a wish. We say things like "I hope ......would happen", but what we are really saying is, "I wish....would happen." and with that wishing comes doubt. "I hope .....happens, it probably won't, but I hope it does."

Yet James 1:5-8 says this,
If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. ⁶But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. ⁷That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; ⁸he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.    

If our hope carries doubt along with it, than it is not the hope that God offers us. So if hope is not like a wish, that carries doubt, what is it?


Hope means "an exciting anticipation; a confident expectancy that God will do what He says He will do". Now that's a far cry from what most of us think of as hope!!!!

If you are a mother, you have experienced this kind of hope when you were "expecting" your first child. You were excited, silly, and gitty as you squealed with your friends over the sex of the baby and over all the clothes people gave you that were so cute, and over the decorations of the room that was recently painted bright blue or pink for that new arrival. There was a definite excitement and expectancy!


What if we had that kind of hope about our current circumstances! What if we carried such a confidence in God that He would provide a way through our deepest struggles that we were actually gitty with excitement to see what He would do! How that would change our hearts, our perspective, and our witness to others!

So as you ponder this truth today, let me encourage you with these Scriptures from Hebrews 10:
 ³⁵So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. ³⁶You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised. ³⁷For in just a very little while,
   "He who is coming will come and will not delay.
    ³⁸But my righteous one will live by faith.
   And if he shrinks back,
      I will not be pleased with him." ³⁹But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.

Rise up, my friends! We are NOT those who shrink back, but walk forth in hope....with a joyous, confident expectancy that God will come through for us! He loves us and has our best interest at heart. So we walk with exciting expectancy to see what He will do! May God give us that kind of perspective and that kind of hope from this day forward! In Jesus' name!