Hope is such a small word but it is really a word that has a lot riding on it. It has your future riding on it and that’s a big deal. Why? Because it is our thoughts and actions about what our future should look like that impacts our today. Your purpose for today will usually impact on your future including your tomorrow. So what is the meaning of hope? One definition of hope in the dictionary is to look forward to with desire and reasonable confidence. Hope is dressed with something that is possible to be obtained. It is closer than a dream to reality but will still desire some actions on our part, even if those actions only involve believing.
Let’s look at hope from a day to day viewpoint. Most of us hope that tomorrow will be better than today, that our bank balance will look healthier in the future, that our children will finish school, get a good job and maybe get married or that our health will be better than today. All of this is dressed in the fact that something good will occur in my future. But what if it doesn’t? What happens then? Our hope in everyday things can sometimes be fickle and leaves us very discouraged. So the only thing we can do about it is put our hope in something or someone that is far bigger than we are. For us who believe in God, the answer to that is God.
In the Bible, hope is most often connected with faith. In Hebrews 11:6, it states that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Faith is putting our trust in God and in His Word and in the fact that God’s Word does not return to him void. What does this mean? Sometimes our hopes and dreams go nowhere but if we say God’s Word, there is always action behind it. Faith is our action behind our hope which is our desire to look forward with confident expectation to whatever it is we are expecting to happen. We need to believe before we can see. We need to raise our vision high and if what we see doesn’t line up with our vision and hope, we always look to our vision and hope before we look at our current reality.
So what are you hoping that your future will look like? Get a hold of a promise from God’s Word, stand on it in faith until you see it come to pass. One word of advice – God’s timing is never our timing. But hang in there and don’t let go. Your future is far more than what you can see. Hope – it is what your future depends on!!
Living the life God intended 