Hope

Hope. It does more than just float!  I was flipping through the channels the other night and saw the movie Hope Floats was on. I stopped and watched it for a few minutes because I hadn’t seen it in many years. The main character gets embarrassed by her friend on national television when it’s revealed that her friend was having an affair with her husband. She packs up her daughter and heads back to her hometown to start over. There, she meets up with an old friend who helps get her back on her feet and find love.

People use the word “hope” all the time, like I hope it doesn’t rain, or I hope I have a better day today than yesterday. We use the word hope like it’s a wish, like we are throwing a penny in a wishing well and “hoping” for a dream to come true. But that isn’t the hope that the Bible talks about. The world has a “hope so hope” while the Bible projects a “know so hope”.

I think about the story of Abraham when he was told in his old age that he and his wife Sarah would have a promised child in which many nations would come from. He could have walked away from that promise and said, “I hope so”. However, he walked away from the promise of God with a “know so hope”. “In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, ‘So shall your offspring be.’” - Romans 4:18. In “hope” (know so hope) he believed against “hope” (hope so hope).

“For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” - Romans 8:24-25. Our hope is in Jesus Christ and what He has done on the Cross for us. None of were alive to see it, so we believe in faith and put our hope in the promise of His future return. We hope that He will return soon. It’s not a “hope so hope” but a “know so hope”. We can have that kind of hope in God’s Word because of the multitude of examples in which He has made a promise and kept it. That’s where our hope comes from.

“For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.” - 1 Timothy 4:10.

Have a great day and God bless.