Do you have hope?

How would you define the word “hope?”   Is it wishful thinking?  Is it saying - I hope this something will happen?  I don’t think this is the way that God defines hope.   I looked up the word hope in Vine’s Bible Dictionary and it said that the definition of hope was “favorable and confident expectation.”  Hope is trusting God in spite of circumstances.  It is having the confident expectation that God will make all things work together for good for those who love Him. 

It’s easy to lose our hope.    The Psalmist wrote, “Why, my soul, are you downcast?  Why so disturbed within me?  Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and My God.”  Psalm 42: 5  When we lose our hope, our souls are downcast and discouraged.   It’s hard to get out of bed in the morning and our days are filled with melancholy.  But the Lord tells us what to do about it in this Psalm - put your hope in God.  I think one of the main reasons we lose our hope is because we are hoping in the wrong things.  We place our hope in events and wants instead of in God.   Hope is not longing for some future event.  Rather, it’s having a confidence in life because we know that we serve a God who loves us and will take care of us.  It’s having a firm assurance that God is still God and that will never change. Corrie Ten Boon said, “Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”  This to me describes hope.