Protecting Hope

I am thankful for so many things in my life. Sitting here in my sort of messy room at the end of a full day, I am thinking back to all I have experienced in the last 20 years of life. I have lived a lot in the last two decades. I had all my children, my oldest turned 20 this year. I survived what I call my “great depression” years. I experienced hating myself and wanting to die. I lived through crushing fear in parenting, and I learned to love each of my children individually, just as they are… and they are pretty awesome!

After reaching the other side of more water under the bridge than I can express, and because I still carry with me the battle scars of a formerly “shipwrecked” life, I am more thankful than I can say for the indescribable hope that sings in my soul today.

“We were saved in hope. If we see what we hope for, that isn’t hope. Who hopes for what they already see? But if we hope for what we don’t see, we wait for it with patience.”

Romans 8:24-25

Hope that comes from God isn’t like the world’s version of hope. Human hope is sort of just something you say when you’re not sure what else to say. “Boy, I sure hope this turns out for the better.” Or, “I sure hope the weather’s good tomorrow.” It’s kind of a passive shrug of the shoulders. Yeah, we want something better, but we’re at the mercy of life’s whims.

I mean, I say that type of thing, too. We don’t mean anything by it, it’s just what we say. But all this week I’ve been thinking about hope and hopelessness, and in light of my reflections, that type of shrugging human “hope” just seems so hopeless to me.

“…suffering produces endurance… endurance produces character… character produces hope… and hope does not put us to shame…”

Romans 5:3b-5a

I’ve done a little thinking and digging about whether it’s hope that comes before faith, or maybe faith comes before hope. Maybe the answer’s out there, but I go back and forth in my own opinion. Either way, I know in my heart that they are intimately connected.

The hope that God gives connects with faith. The hope of heaven isn’t based on a question of maybe something good will happen. God’s kind of hope says, “This is what I have promised, so this is what will happen. Period.” When we know what God has promised in His Word, and when we believe that God’s promises are true, hope springs up.

God’s kind of hope always rises to the top because it’s based on His absolute truth. He is good. His promises are true. And it is impossible for God to lie.

This is where faith comes in.

“It’s impossible to please God without faith because the one who draws near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.”

Hebrews 11:6

At a certain point in my prayer life, and I still get reminders in my spirit from time to time, the Lord whispered to me, “no more begging.” Everything the Lord has promised in His Word is ours for the taking, so there’s no need to beg in prayer.

Begging prayers usually come, I believe, when we are resting in human hope instead of God’s version of hope. Remember that human hope says, “oh I want this to happen… oh I’m not sure what will happen… but I really want this to happen… oh, please God make this happen.”

Human hope makes us beggars. It’s a sad reality that all too often ends in utter hopelessness. Remember the verse that says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick”? (Prov 13:12) Imagine if we placed all our chips on empty human hope that fell apart in failure over and over, time and time again. We’d eventually stop placing those chips, wouldn’t we? The pain of consistently unmet expectations would be too great for us to bear.

This is why people give up in life. How many times can you beat your head against the same brick wall? But human hope will never deliver.

“Now faith is the assurance (title deed, confirmation) of things hoped for (divinely guaranteed), and the evidence of things not seen [the conviction of their reality—faith comprehends as fact what cannot be experienced by the physical senses]. ² For by this [kind of] faith the men of old gained [divine] approval.”

Hebrews 11:1 AMP

A tiny spark of real hope can lead to faith… and God’s kind of hope is signified by faith. When we have the Kingdom kind of faith, we take hold of what the Word says and believe it… then hope begins to grow. Instead of saying, “oh Lord please help me,” we begin to say, “Lord, I thank You that You are always helping me at all times, and that You are helping me even now in this situation!”

And how do we know this? Because God’s Word says “It is God Himself who goes before me; He will never leave me nor forsake me,” (Deut 31:8) and “He will accomplish what concerns me,” (Ps 138:8) in Jesus’ name.

Heaven’s hope says, “We know God will do it because He said He would do it in His Word.” Heaven never hopes on empty wishing… heaven hopes on FACTS. The truth really will set us free.

Here are a few things to know about hope:

• God PLANS to give us Hope.
  “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11
  
• BELIEVING is a requirement for Hope.
  “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
  
• Hope is LIFE.
  “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead… to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading kept in heaven for you..” 1 Peter 1:3-4.

All that to say this… hold onto the hope you profess. Get in the Word and seek out the God kind of hope, and don’t settle for less than what He offers. Close the door on empty wishing and lean into Jesus and His Word. God has so much more for us than we realize… and it all starts with hope.