1 Corinthians 13:13 13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
These three things remain/abide – they are eternal. Love is the greatest, and we know that without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6), but hope is ranked there with them.
Definition
Hope is the happy anticipation of good. A favorable and confident expectation.
Hope is the expectation that the future will be better than the present, and I have the power to make it so.
–Steve Backlund, Igniting Hope Ministries
The happy anticipation of good – picture your kids on Christmas morning. Or your kitties when you pull out the bag of treats.
A lot of what passes for hope these days is just wishful thinking. I.e., this is what I’d like to happen, but I don’t have any real expectation that it will. Biblical hope has a confident expectation.
Another attribute of hope is that it concerns the future. You don’t have to hope for something you already have.
Romans 8:24 24 For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees?
So hope is going to involve things that are not seen, or not perceived by the physical senses. So how do you “see” something that is not seen?
God has given human beings a marvelous capability to see things that are not (yet) real – it is called imagination. Imagination comes from image, which is a visual depiction of something.
We’ve all experienced “daydreaming” before. Living or acting out a scenario in your mind’s eye. “Mind’s eye” is just another name for our imagination, the ability to picture things.
Biblical hope uses imagination to picture those things desired.
Relationship between Hope and Faith
Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Hebrews 11:1 AMP Now faith is the assurance (the confirmation, the title-deed) of the things [we] hope for, being the proof of things [we] do not see and the conviction of their reality – faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses.
Because hope involves things in the future, it doesn’t have substance, or tangibleness. Faith gives substance to those things you hope for. It brings those things that you have an inner image of into reality.
Thinks of it this way – hope is the blueprint for you faith. Imagine you are building your custom dream home. You have an idea of the features you want – the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, an open kitchen/family room, and island in the kitchen, a pantry, a deck with a door in the master bedroom going out to it. You have an idea of the style. But you probably don’t know how to lay out those rooms.
So you sit down with an architect/designer. He or she probably already has sets of floorplans to look at to get ideas; maybe there is one you like but you want to tweak it a bit. The architect will show you artist renderings of what the outside of the house can look like, the style. You go back and forth and settle on the design.
Once it is finalized, the architect will draw up a set of blueprints (the name comes from an old process of reproducing large documents using light sensitive paper. The prints came out with white lines on blue background), technical drawings that are the plans for constructing the house. Those blueprints, floorplans, and artistic renderings are the image of your house.
You can get excited about it – because you can see the end result – but you can’t live in those plans. They are just paper.
You need the builders – excavators, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, concrete workers, painters, etc. to take materials and give substance to those plans.
I remember the first house (actually the only one) we had built from scratch. It was a tract home, so the floor plan was fixed, but we got to choose the lot, the exterior design, carpet colors, etc.
It took a few months to build, but we would go out to the building site often to see the progress. When it was at the point where the framing was up, we took our three kids and walked all over that house (“Here’s the kitchen! Here’s the living room!”) Up the stairs (with no railing – “hold Mommy’s hand!”) – “here’s your room! Here’s the master bedroom! Here’s the bathroom!” It was a really exciting time. We lived in that house for 19 years. My kids grew up there.
We see the relationship between hope and faith with Abraham:
Romans 4:17-18 17 (as it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations”) in the presence of Him whom he believed–God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did;
18 who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, “So shall your descendants be.”
The KJV says “against hope, in hope believed”. What in the world does that mean?
There is natural hope that is brought about by circumstances: when things look like they might go the way you desire, that produces natural hope. The problem is, if the circumstances don’t look favorable, you lose that hope.
But then there is a hope that is produced by the promises of God. That’s what Abraham had. Biblical hope does not get its vision from the circumstances, but from what God says.
Hebrews 10:23 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.
The word confession in the New Testament (the KJV renders it as profession in this verse) is homelogeo, which means to say the same thing. So this verse is encouraging us to speak what the promise is. That will build our hope.
The Effect of Hopelessness
Proverbs 13:12 12 Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But when the desire comes, it is a tree of life.
Most people read this as when something you’ve been longing for / hoping for doesn’t come, it makes you heart sick and depressed. But that’s not what it says. It’s not that you haven’t received what you desire, it’s that you have deferred your hope. It’s that you’ve given up your hope – that’s what makes your heart sick.
Hopelessness is a very dangerous thing. It is responsible for many evils in human society. I did a Google search on “statistics on hopelessness”. Below are some of the titles of studies I found. There were many more. Now I can’t say I’ve read all these studies, but you can see that there has been much attention given to the subject.
- Levels of hopelessness during COVID-19 lockdowns
- Hopelessness and violence among inner-city youths
- Suicide: The tragedy of hopelessness (book)
- Relationship between hopelessness and ultimate suicide
- Negative attributional style; hopelessness, depression and endogenous depression
- Substance abuse among college students: Investigating the role of hopelessness
There is a fascinating story about a man named Viktor Frankl, who was an Austrian born Jew who studied psychology during the time Hitler came into power. From WiKi:
After earning his M.D. in 1930, Frankl gained extensive experience at Steinhof Psychiatric Hospital, where he was responsible for the treatment of suicidal women. In 1937, he began a private practice, but the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938 limited his opportunity to treat patients.[1] In 1940, he joined Rothschild Hospital, the only hospital in Vienna still admitting Jews, as head of the neurology department. Prior to his deportation to the concentration camps, he helped numerous patients avoid the Nazi euthanasia program that targeted the mentally disabled.[5][13]
In 1942, just nine months after his marriage, Frankl and his family were sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. His father died there of starvation and pneumonia. In 1944, Frankl and the surviving members of his family were transported to Auschwitz, where his mother and brother were murdered in the gas chambers. His wife died later of typhus in Bergen-Belsen. Frankl spent three years in four concentration camps.[6]
After he was released, he wrote a book called Man’s Search for Meaning.
Steve Backlund, of Igniting Hope Ministries, writes this about that book:
Viktor Frankl in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, recounts how hope for the future was the single most important factor in determining whether his fellow prisoners survived the Nazi concentration camps in World War II. He wrote, “The prisoner who had lost faith in the future – his future – was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold. He let himself decline and become subject to mental and physical decay.”
Frankl, who helped millions value hope after he was released from the concentration camps, had at the core of his therapy this truth: human beings are driven by their views of their own future. The more positive the future is seen, the more power and purpose there will be for the present.
Frankl had a “why” to live for while as a prisoner. His why was he wanted to see his family again, and he wanted to write his book. This vision caused him to endure intense suffering by seeing it as something that would make him stronger for his future.
When we don’t have a why to live for, we are reduced to trying to protect what we have, focus on the past, and will only change to avoid pain. Our purpose will be reduced to trying not lose what we have left (trying not to move backward in life).
No Vision
Proverbs 29:18 KJV 18 Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.
The word perish has some pretty wide meaning in Hebrew, rendered as uncovered, loosened, made naked, brought to naught, cast off restraint. In one sense “perish” means to be destroyed in some way, and in the other sense “cast off restraint” means people abandon themselves to bad behavior; we see that evident in the titles of those studies my Google search found.
So the cause of this perishing or casting off restraint is a lack of vision. Other translations say revelation. The Amplified says
Proverbs 29:18 AMP 18 Where there is no vision [no redemptive revelation of God], the people perish; but he who keeps the law [of God, which includes that of man]—blessed (happy, fortunate, and enviable) is he.
We can put all this together and come up with this: where there is a lack of revelation of what God says, people are unrestrained and often indulge in behavior that is harmful to themselves and others.
Positive Effects of Hope
We’ve talked about the negative effects of hopelessness, but we don’t want to camp there. What are positive effects of being hopeful – i.e., full of hope?
We have already seen that hope is an essential ingredient to faith.
Hebrews 6:17-20 17 Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath,
18 that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us.
19 This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil,
20 where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.
The purpose of an anchor on a boat is to keep the boat from drifting off at the mercy of the wind, waves, and currents. It gives stability to the boat.
Hope acts as an anchor for or soul, which consists of our mind, will, and emotions. The thing most affected by our circumstances – the storms of life – is our emotions. They will just go flying off in every direction, tossed to and fro. Having hope – a confident expectation, based on having an inward image of what it would be like if the promise of God is fulfilled in your life – will give our emotions stability.
Romans 5:3-5 3 And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance;
4 and perseverance, character; and character, hope.
5 Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
Experience with God will build hope. If He has come through before, He will do it again.
God’s Desire for our Hope
Jeremiah 29:11 11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
There are many scriptures that relate our salvation to hope.
- Ephesians 1:18 – the hope of His calling
- Colossians 1:27 – Christ in you, the hope of glory
- 1 Thessalonians 5:8 – put on as a helmet the hope of salvation
- Titus 2:13 – looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our God and Savior Jesus Christ
- 1 Peter 1:13 – rest your hope fully on the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ
Going from hopeless to hopeful
People who have experienced disappointment will tell you, “don’t get your hopes up!”. They are trying to avoid hope deferred, which makes the heart sick. But we want to get our hopes up, at least our Biblical hope.
Romans 15:13 13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
This is a tremendous verse showing that God wants to be actively involved with building our hope. He is even called “the God of hope”. The goal is that we may abound – have an abundance and overflow – in hope.
It tells us the result of having abounding hope – we will be filled with “all joy and peace”. But it also gives us the key for going from hopeless to hopeful – in believing.
To go from being hopeless to full of hope, we are going to have to believe something different than what we have been believing.
Here are some steps for building our hope
Evaluate where you have a lack of hope
This will tell you where you need to concentrate your efforts.
Get the promise
Romans 15:4 4 For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.
The scriptures, and the promises of God, are the foundation of Biblical hope. So once we have identified the area where we have a lack of hope, we need to find the scriptures/promises concerning that area. Ask yourself the question: what do you need to believe to have hope in this situation?
Keep it in front of your eyes and in your mouth
When dealing with hopelessness in an area, change probably looks impossible. But we have to move beyond that, and there is a progression to it. What looks impossible will move to possible, and then to probable.
Since it is the scriptures and promise that produce hope, we need to keep them constantly before our eyes, and go over it. The second thing is that it needs to come out our mouth – we have to speak the promise, to declare it. This comes from advice that Moses gave to Joshua before he was to take over the leadership of Israel.
Joshua 1:8 8 This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.
Meditate – going over the promise
Not depart from your mouth – declaring the promise
Doing these things will give you the power to act on the promise – to change what needs to be changed.
The result will be you will have success.
Stop the negativity coming out your mouth
Just as it is important to declare the promises of God, it is also essential to stop the words that contradict the promise. If you declare the promise, and then after that complain that nothing is ever going to change, your own words are working against you. They will cancel out.
Unless you are in the habit of watching what you say, a lot of us are probably unaware of these “negative declarations” coming out of our mouths, because they are such an ingrained habit. You can ask the Lord for help in this.
Psalms 141:3 3 Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; Keep watch over the door of my lips.
Your spouse can be a wonderful partner to make each other aware of your words – if you both agree to do so. Don’t go correcting other people’s confessions if they haven’t asked you to do so – it will just annoy them.
Rehearse good testimonies
Lamentations 3:21-26 21 This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope.
22 Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not.
23 They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.
24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I hope in Him!”
25 The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, To the soul who seeks Him.
26 It is good that one should hope and wait quietly For the salvation of the Lord.
Recalling and rehearsing what God has done in the past produces hope. “If He’s done it before, He’ll do it again!” That is what a testimony is – a recalling of what God has done. Usually it is a difficulty He got you out of (that’s the “test” part) or a blessing He has bestowed. And it doesn’t even have to be your own testimony – it could be something God did for someone else. “If He did it for them, He’ll do it for me!”
Philippians 4:8 8 Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy–meditate on these things.
Paul in Philippians 4 tells us how to combat anxiety. Pray, make your requests to God. Then he follows it with this verse – think on the good things. Meditate – go over and over in your mind – the good reports. Anxiety is just going over and over in your mind the bad things that could happen. So here we are to purposely do the opposite and think on the good things.
Paul gives a pretty broad category of things you can think of:
- True – some things are true, they are facts, but they are not a good report
- Noble – KJV says honest, or honorable
- Just – right or righteous
- Pure – clean, innocent
- Lovely – lit. friendly towards
- Virtue – praise, valor, excellence
- Praiseworthy – worthy of praise, of speaking well of
Celebrate progress, not Perfection
We all love to get instant results for our efforts. But most of the time on things which are really important, results aren’t instant, especially when you are talking about changing yourself and your beliefs and hopes. It is essential then that we keep at it and don’t quit.
Galatians 6:9 9 And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.
Losing heart is just another way of saying losing hope. If you take as your only measure of success having the final goal/result fulfilled, you can get discouraged along the way because you are not there yet. Therefore it is essential that you take progress as a measure of success, not perfection. Celebrate the small things! If you have a mountain to climb, and only look at the top at how far you have to go, it can be daunting. We need to look back sometimes and see how far we’ve come! That is encouraging.
Here’s a hike we did where our goal was to climb way up a ridge on a mountain – 1900 ft elevation climb. We took several opportunities to look back at how far we’d come. We made it about 3/4 of the way up because the “trail” degraded into scrambling over rocks.
Surround yourself with hopeful people
Having others to encourage you are your way is a great help. But sometimes you can’t find those people in your own household. There are a multitude of resources online you can turn to.
I recommend Igniting Hope Ministries, founded by Steve and Wendy Backlund (and whom I’ve quoted). As their name implies, they are dedicated to producing hope in people and concentrate on renewing the mind and changing your beliefs. They have self assessment questionnaires, books (I have several), courses, a podcast, and do local seminars (they are headquartered in Redding, CA. and are part of the Bethel Leaders Network). We attended their Abounding Hope and Joy conference in April 2022 and it was one of the best I’ve ever been to. If you search on YouTube for their name (Backlund) or ministry name, you’ll find a number of their messages.
