Hope

This morning I have been reading scriptures on Hope. They really are very encouraging. As I contemplate them, I think about my previous blog post on Faith. It seems God is leading me down a path of reflection of Faith, Hope ... and Love. So today, hope.

I was thinking about faith and what occurred to me was that faith is like believing something will be or will happen because it is likely that it will. For instance, you have faith when you go to bed at night that you will wake up the next morning. The reason you believe that -- have faith in that -- is that is always happens. Well, for most people, it usually happens. It certainly does not happen 100% of the time for all people, but for any of you reading this, it happened for you this morning! And every day for all of your life this has occurred; you go to sleep with absolute faith that you will later wake up. And you do. So it is easy to believe for this. That is faith.

Hope is different. Hope is really wanting something to happen, but not being certain that it will. For instance, you have hope that when you go to bed at night, you will wake up the next morning and be a millionaire!! LOL. Seriously, if you have health problems you hope you will wake up feeling better. If you are having financial worries, you hope that you will get a raise at work. If you are having relationship problems you hope that today will be the day you will get those sorted out. If you are having problems with your teenager you hope that today will be the day that will change and something or someone will affect change that will put them on a new and better path.

You hope for these things but you do not know if they will happen; unlike faith of which you are 99.9% certain something will happen, like waking up.

But for both of those virtues, when they are placed in the Lord God of heaven and earth, they are much more certain that simply having faith or hope in waking up or seeing change in your life.

With God, all things are possible! (Matthew 19:26) Praise be to God!!

If you see my previous post on Faith you will see that the biblical definition of faith is "the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1 So here we see faith in action as it believes for those things for which we hope. Hope gives meaning to life. Without it, where would we be? There would be no reason to go on. But we can and do have hope! What a wonderful promise. See some scriptures that encourage us to hope:

Happy (blessed, fortunate, enviable) is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God. Psalm 146: 5

 You will guard him and keep him in perfect and constant peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he commits himself to You, leans on You, and hopes confidently in You.
Isaiah 26: 3

But as for me, I will look to the Lord and confident in Him I will keep watch; I will wait with hope and expectancy for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me. Micah 7: 7

May the God of your hope so fill you with all joy and peace in believing [through the experience of your faith] that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound and be overflowing with hope. Romans 15: 13  

But as for me, I will look to the Lord and confident in Him I will keep watch; I will wait with hope and expectancy for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me. Micah 7: 7

Wait and hope for and expect the Lord; be brave and of good courage and let your heart be stout and enduring. Yes, wait for and hope for and expect the Lord. Psalm 27: 14

Just as I said in my previous post on Faith that it is not blind, but based on what we know and believe of our God, so is our hope based on what we know and believe of our loving and merciful God. We can have hope each day that as we place our situations in the capable and loving hands of God, that He will hear and answer our prayers and our joy may be full!

Praise God. Amen.