Today's Thoughts: Hope

Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart, All you who hope in the Lord. - Psalm 21:34

The word "hope" is mentioned repeatedly throughout the Psalms to bring encouragement in the Lord. Most of us speak of "hope" interchangeably with other words such as dreams, wishes, desires and goals. We pray and hope, dream and hope, and you can probably think of other words that you use in connection with "hope." The Bible most commonly uses the word "trust" in association with its definition. To hope in the Lord means that we are putting our trust in Him. In searching how often "hope" is used, I found that it comes up most frequently in the book of Job and the Psalms. One book describes pain and suffering; the other, praise and worship. But hope is the common thread in both.

When we are down, we are desperate for something or someone to place our hopes in or upon. We need to know that tomorrow will be better. We need to believe that lives are changing toward the good. If we are sick, we hope to be healed. If we are in financial crises, we hope for restoration and prosperity. If we are in any kind of trouble, we hope that everything works out positively. We hope for a tomorrow that is better than today. Without hope, where would we be? How could we keep going? Hebrews 11:1 says that "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." We must trust in the only One who brings real hope - Jesus Christ. Though we cannot physically see Him, we must place our faith in His love for us. Jesus is our only hope, for only He has the power to change our tomorrows.

Do you need hope for today? Pick up God's Word and ask Him to show you His hope for your situation. Regardless of where you are, He already knows everything about it. No trouble or trial is too great for our Lord. We have but one requirement: to place all of our hope in Him. There is no hope in the world, only fleeting moments. But God gives us hope in the eternal life that awaits us. The Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:17 that our light affliction is but for a moment compared to the eternal glory that awaits those of us in Christ Jesus. Put your hope and trust today in Jesus. Ask Him to fill you with His Holy Spirit to comfort you with His hope of glory.

"The most humble of the three virtues" was the topic that Pope Francis dedicated his homily to on October 29, 2013 at Casa Santa Marta , during which he again warned against "our clericalism, our non-ecclesial ecclesiastical attitudes, "so that Christian hope is dynamic and life-giving".

The Pope, reports Vatican Radio, was inspired by the words of St. Paul, in the first reading, to highlight the unique dimension of Christian hope. That is not optimistic, but "an ardent expectation" a longing for the Revelation of the Son of God.

"Hope does not disappoint, it is safe". But "it is not easy to see hope". "Hope is not optimism, it is not to be confused with that ability to look at things with good cheer and move on. No, that's optimism, not hope. Nor is hope simply having a positive attitude in front of things. Those bright and positive people, which in itself is a good thing no?. Butt it is not hope. It is not easy to figure out what is the hope. It is said to be the most humble of three virtues, because it hides itself in life. Faith can be seen, felt, known. You can do charity, you know what it is. But what is the hope? What is this attitude of hope? To try to understand it even a little we could say firstly that hope is a risk, it is a risky virtue, as St. Paul says it is the virtue of ardent expectation for the Revelation of the Son of God.' It is not an illusion".

Having hope is this: "longing for this Revelation, this joy that covers our faces with smiles". Saint Paul emphasizes that hope is not optimism, "it is more." It is another different thing ." The first Christians "depicted it as an anchor: hope was an anchor, an anchor tied to the banks" of the afterlife . And our life is just walking towards this anchor.

"The question comes to mind: where we anchored to ourselves, each of us? Are we anchored right there on the shore of that far away ocean or we are anchored to an artificial lagoon that we created, with our rules, our behavior, our rhythms, our clericalism, our non-ecclesial ecclesiastical attitudes, huh? Are we anchored there? Everything comfortable, all secure , huh? That is not hope . Where is my heart anchored, there in this man-made lagoon, with really impeccable behavior... " .

St. Paul shows another icon of hope, that of childbirth. "We are waiting - he observed - this is a delivery. And hope is in this dynamic", of "giving life." But, he added, "the first fruits of the Spirit can not be seen". Yet I know that "the Spirit works". He works in us "like a mustard seed, that inside is full of life, strength, progressing" to become tree . The Spirit works like yeast. This, he added, "is how the Spirit works: you do not see it, but it is there. It's a grace we must ask for" :

"It is one thing is to live in hope, because in hope we are saved and another thing to live as good Christians, and nothing more. Waiting with ardent expectation for the revelation or living true to the commandments, being anchored to the shore of the beyond or parked in our own artificial lagoon. I think of Mary, a young girl, when, after she heard she was to be a mother changed her attitude and went, and helped and sang a song of praise. When a woman becomes pregnant she is a woman, but she is never (just) a woman is a mother . And hope has something of this. It changes our attitude: we are who we are, but we are not only that, we are looking towards there, anchored there. "

by Whitney Hopler

After a good friend moved to Thailand for a few years and I had a baby, our lives pulled us in separate directions and we lost touch with each other. I thought about Pam often, but never made the effort to stay connected with her, since I didn't know when we could realistically get together again. My regret over my neglect of our friendship grew over the years, so one day I decided to try to contact her, only to discover that her old email was no longer valid. She wasn't on social media, and even trying to track down forwarding addresses and phone numbers for her didn't work. It seemed hopeless that I could ever see Pam again. But I prayed that somehow God would bring us back into each other's lives if he wanted us to reconnect.

Then one Sunday at my church, as I was picking up a communion wafer, I glanced over to the other side of the table and found that I was looking into Pam's face! It turned out that Pam had moved back into the local area, looked around for a new church to attend, and felt strongly compelled to visit this particular church - not knowing that I had been a member there for years. God surprised us by bringing us back into each other's lives.

No matter how hopeless a situation may seem, it's always worth staying hopeful, because God has the power to change circumstances dramatically at any time.

The same power that fueled history's most dramatically hopeful event - Jesus Christ's resurrection on the first Easter - is still at work today whenever God decides to bring new life to seemingly dead situations in our lives. 1 Peter 1:3 declares: "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" - and it's because of that living hope that we can stay hopeful in situations that seem hopeless.

Here are 5 ways to stay hopeful in situations that seem hopeless:

1. Look beyond a hopeless situation to your hopeful God.

Your circumstances may be so dire that they seem hopeless. But there's always a possibility that God will choose to intervene - and whenever he does, he fulfills hope in any situation. No circumstances are beyond the reach of God's hope, as the Bible story of Jesus Christ raising Lazarus from the dead shows. When Jesus heard that his friend Lazarus was sick, he intentionally waited until Lazarus had died to travel to Lazarus' home - in order to show that there are no limits to the power of what God can do when people place their hope in him. Rather than just healing Lazarus of an illness, Jesus went to the extreme of bringing him back from the dead to demonstrate his limitless power.

What "dead" situation are you facing right now? Maybe you're dealing with a chronic illness, a long season of unemployment, a broken relationship, or a bad habit that you've tried yet failed to change. No matter how hopeless the situation seems, choose to believe that God can still change it if he chooses to do so. In Luke 18:27, Jesus declares: "What is impossible with man is possible with God."

2. Keep knocking on God's door through prayer.

I spent 23 long years praying for someone I loved dearly - my mom - to come to faith in Christ. After years of not seeing any spiritual interest from Mom despite all my efforts to talk with her about faith, I became so discouraged that I nearly gave up. But Mom herself had taught me to never give up on any effort that I thought was important. And I remembered Jesus' words from Matthew 7:7-9: "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened."

After I started talking to God about Mom more than I talked to Mom about God - after I focused on prayer - I started to see Mom seek God more. Eventually, Mom did become a believer, despite having told me for years that expecting her to believe was hopeless.

3. Surround yourself with faithful, encouraging people.

The scariest seemingly hopeless situation in my life happened when my husband Russ reached the end stage of kidney disease and nearly died. As I watched Russ' health decline to a dangerous point while we tried to find the lifesaving kidney he needed, I felt so hopeless that I started to plan for life as a single mom after being widowed. But during that desperate time, I had the blessing of relationships with many fellow believers who prayed for us, encouraged us, and spread the word about the need. Just in time, a wonderful guy from our church donated a kidney through a successful transplant operation. Russ and I experienced the love within the body of Christ literally, as one person gave a part of his own body to save my husband's life, and many people supported us all throughout the crisis.

4. Remember what God has done for you in the past.

While you're waiting to see hope fulfilled in a difficult situation, it helps to recall past situations in which God came through with the hope you needed. This helped me get through a difficult time after a professional project that I loved working on abruptly ended. The corporation I produced the project for was sold, and I was told that there was no hope that the project would be active again. But I couldn't shake the sense that God had more work for me to do on it someday. So I kept hoping and praying that someday God would activate it once more if he did in fact want me to resume working on it sometime in the future. I knew that God could do so easily, since he had brought several incredible career opportunities my way in the past. Remembering what God had done before in my life helped me stay hopeful about what God may do for me in the future, at the right time. Remembering some key answered prayers from your own past can give you a fresh dose of hope right now about something on which you're still waiting for God's answer.

5. Expect surprises.

One December day, I got a surprise Christmas present: the work project that seemed as if it was hopelessly gone was in fact being revived, and the company recruited me to come back to work on it. God has some surprises in store for you, as well, since he is always at work redeeming hopeless situations with hope. Trusting God to surprise you with hope in the midst of a situation that seems hopeless will lead you to blessings of joy and peace. As Romans 15:13 says, "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."

Invite God to do whatever he wants to do in your life, and look forward to some amazing surprises!

About The Author:

Whitney Hopler, who has served as a Crosswalk.com contributing writer for many years, produces a site about angels and miracles for About.com. She is author of the young adult inspirational novel Dream Factory (which is set during Hollywood's golden age) and writes about the power of thoughts on her "Renewing Your Mind" blog.

by Greg Laurie

"The hopes of the godless evaporate." - (Job 8:13)

It has been said that man can live 40 days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air, but only one second without hope. No matter what we are facing, we all need hope.

But where are we going to find this hope that we so desperately need? We are not going to find it in people or things. Nor are we going to find it in a politician or a political persuasion, regardless of what side of the aisle we are on. Nor are we going to find it in technology or science or in a relationship or in an accomplishment.

Sometimes people will put their hope in their investments or their bank accounts or their home. But listen to what the Bible says in Job 8:13–15: "The hopes of the godless evaporate. Their confidence hangs by a thread. They are leaning on a spider's web. They cling to their home for security, but it won’t last. They try to hold it tight, but it will not endure."

These are very poignant words in light of our nation's present economic situation. We should not put our hope in people. We should not put our hope in things. We need to put our hope in God. That is what the Bible teaches.

Psalm 42:5–6 says, "Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again - my Savior and my God!"

This will give us the strength to go on in life, because we know there is an afterlife where things will be made right.

There may be times when you feel helpless, but you never should feel hopeless. The Bible brims with promises of hope for every follower of Jesus Christ.

Summary sentence: Do you feel like your hope is evaporating?

by James MacDonald

Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God.
- Revelation 19:11-13

Think about how many things people hope in on a regular basis: people put their hope in their careers, in their families, in their friends. People hope in their favorite sports team; they hope in playing lotto and winning big . . . they hope in the temporary. Do you?

Revelation 19 unpacks the ultimate Kodak moment of who Jesus is today and how we will, one day see Him as our Conquering King. Jesus wants us to hope in more than just the everyday things that have no staying power. He wants us to hope in who He is.

One of the steps toward doing this is identifying the roadblocks that keep us from Him and put our hope into paralysis. Perhaps the most influential roadblock is having an inaccurate view of who Jesus is, but the solution is simple. We need to round out our picture of Jesus by knowing who He is today and add some of the broader strokes that Revelation gives. More than a baby in a manger and even greater than a suffering Savior.

Read the verses from chapter 19 again. A white horse. The symbol for victory. Faithful and true. Someone who will never let you down. He judges and wages war. If it was left to our own idea of justice, we’d depend on a tank and some massive weapons. Our Divine Conqueror has no need of these. In a world that cries of injustice, He’ll settle the score for all that this world has ever seen.

Try to wrap your mind around this: the same One who wore the crown of thorns and died the most painful death imaginable will return to have His day, crowned in diadems. He is eternal. He’s the very Word of God. Ponder these descriptions of Jesus. Meditate on the Truth of His power, His strength, His holiness.

Complete your picture of who He is today and forever. Put your hope in the One who conquered death and your enslavement to sin. Cling to the promise that, though other people deceive you, let you down, and disappoint, your hope is solidly in the One called Faithful and True. Rest in the complete picture of Jesus today. - Ron Zappia

Dear Father, thank You for completing my picture of who You are. You are victory; You are unfailing; You are my Conquering King. There are a lot of temporary things in my life that vie for my attention, tempting me to place my hope in them. Let me meditate on the surpassing, eternal Truth of who You are, and let everything else fade into the background. You are amazing, Jesus, and I love You. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.

• Have I placed my trust in who Jesus is, instead of who I believe Him to be?
• What is the first image that comes to my mind when I think of Jesus? How does completing the picture of who He is help me more actively choose to hope in Him?
• What would my life look like if I placed my hope in Jesus everyday? What would change?