HOPE
What
does the word “hope” say to you? I’ve
come to love that word, “hope”. To me,
one who has hope has confidence. A
person who is hopeful cannot help but be positive in their outlook.
I
have a goal of doing a Scripture word study on the word “hope”. Do you know how many times the word hope is
used in the Word of God? On the BibleGateway.com
website, I put in a search for the number of times the word hope occurs in the
New International Version of the Bible, and it gave me 174 times. 18 of those occurrences were in the book of
Job and 31 of those were in the book of Psalms.
The “weeping prophet” Jeremiah used the word hope 14 times in Jeremiah
and Lamentations (certainly some, but surely not all, of those were references
to when he had lost hope or the Israelites had lost hope).
Jeremiah
29:11 says, “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’
declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you
hope and a future.’”
Lamentations 3:21-22 says, “Yet this I call to mind and
therefore I have hope: Because of
the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.”
Psalms 42: 5, 42:11, and 43:5 all say the same thing: “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why
so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.”
I
have struggled on and off with feelings of “hopelessness” in my life. Sometimes these feelings come because of
physical difficulties. Sometimes they
come because of being emotionally drained.
But when I go to the Word of God and find Scriptures like the ones
quoted above, I cannot help but find comfort and peace in the Lord because He
is my Hope and my Comfort. He is my
Peace and my Salvation. He is faithful
to His word and He is the One I can praise. As I praise Him I find Hope!
Some
time ago I was listening to a radio broadcast on my way to work. The program was about a man who had been a
minister of the Word for many years.
When he was age 47 he went through a very difficult time of depression
in his life. He had such a hard time
continuing on with his ministry. But he
did because he knew God had called him.
He stated the times before going to church on Sunday morning were
probably the darkest times for him. It
was most difficult for him to get the courage to go. But he did and he found that as he gathered
with other believers and worshipped the Lord, and shared the Word of God with
them, he was most encouraged and found great hope! It took time for him to come out of these
difficult days, but eventually he realized that when he focused his thoughts on
God and the Hope that he had in Him, he was able to get through each day
stronger and more hopeful than the day before.
HOPE
– what does that word mean to you? To me
it is a confidence that I can have, even when days are hard, that God is with
me and He will get me through even the most difficult times. We don’t know what the future holds for any
of us. But we do have HOPE because we
know our future is in His hands!
HOPE
– I know
Heaven is in my future! When my work on
this earth is done, however long or short that time may be, I have HOPE
(confidence) of going to Heaven, being
reunited with loved ones who have gone on before, and seeing Jesus face to
face. This has nothing to do with me –
it is all to do with what Jesus has done for me. What a glorious time that will be!
