Hope - According to Wikipedia, hope means to trust - expect - anticipate. What does it mean to put your hope in God? God's Word is God revealed. To put your hope in God means to put your hope in God's Word. The Bible says that God is not a man that he should lie. If God's Word is true, then we can put our hope in his Word. There are many keys to finding hope, but, we will talk about three very important ones: trust, expectations, and anticipations.
We have such a hard time trusting anyone in our culture. One thing Capitalism has done for us as a nation is made deception- scams profitable. The old saying, "If it sounds too good to be true, it is" resonates in the minds and hearts of most Americans. We have truly become a nation of skeptics, because there are so many half-truths and scams going on in the economic sector of our society. Profit is king in the USA. People will take advantage to get profit. This has had some negative effects upon us as a culture. Trust does not come easily to most Americans.
To hope, means to trust. We are born full of hope. There is nothing more precious than a wide eyed child that is full of hope, and trust. Jesus said that unless you become as a child you will not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. To truly have hope in God, we have to trust God. Hope isn't despair and depression, and giving up. Hope is believing, and praying and trusting. It is having the heart of a child when you truly can believe that 'all things work together for good'
Expectation. We have become a nation of negative expectation. We expect the worse from our government. We expect the worst from our churches. We expect the worst from our teachers, our congressmen, our fellow workers. As sad as it may seem, we also have gotten to the place as a nation in which we expect the worse from our family, and one another as well. Negative expectation kills hope. When you expect a child to fail, they will fail. When you expect a person to perform badly, they will perform badly. When you expect a spouse to cheat, they will cheat. How often is the performance of the people around us simply a product of our expectation of them.
I have worked with a lot with young people, especially troubled youth. What I have found is that when I convey to them that I believe the best of them, think good thoughts towards them, and expect that they will do well...this is often enough to make most of them want to live up to those standards. By their estimation, they cannot remember the last time someone believed in them, and had good thoughts towards them.
How often do we disappoint God with our expectations. When we lower our expectations, we are saying that God will have no impact. Can I expect the best of our government? Yes, because my God is more than able to handle the USA government, and He is the one that appoints leaders, he has it all under his dominion. Can I expect the best of our school teachers? Yes, because God has his hand upon our children, and God is the one that sends his angels to watch over them and to cause them to prosper. No matter what you are facing today, don't lose expectation that something good is bound to happen. To lose that expectation is to lose that child like heart that believes in the goodness of God!
And finally anticipation, what is it to anticipate something. I know a man that recently spent 17 years in prison, and was just released about four months ago. This person has spent his entire adult life in prison, so you can just imagine the shock of trying to integrate into a society that has changed over the past 17 years, and trying to learn how to cope in this current economy. He applied for SSI, and kept waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting. He went to the mail box everyday, because of anticipation. It didn't come, and didn't come and didn't come. Did he stop anticipating? absolutely not. Eventually his family ran out of money and he was homeless. So, we let him sleep a few days at the church, until a government organization found him a hotel to stay in for a while. Did these oppositions keep him from anticipating his check. No. He speaks of how he will pay this one back, and that one back after he gets his check. He kept anticipating because he was certain, sure, trusting that the check, though it tarried, would eventually arrive. He finally got news that the check would arrive within the next 7 to 10 days.
This is how we should be with God's promises. Isn't his Word even more sure than a promise of a government check. Shouldn't we always be anticipating everyday that today may just be they day of my breakthrough! Shouldn't we push back every disappointment and delay and rest on a sure hope that God will not fail us?
Have you been putting your trust in God's Word? Have you had that eager expectation that goodness and mercy is following you? Have you anticipated the day that God's promise comes to fulfillment in your life? If you are falling short, don't forget, God isn't the only one believing in you, I believe in you too. You can do all things through Christ that strengthens you!
As the psalmist said Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in you. Psalm 56:3
