26. My Hope

Names of God Meditations No.26:  My Hope

Psa 130:7,8 “Israel, put your HOPE in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption. He himself will redeem 

Israel from all their sins.”

Rom 15:13 “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.”

Ordinary Hopes: “I hope the weather will be better today.” (After a previous day of grey skies, cold wind, and rain!) “I hope the train will be on time so I’m not late for my meeting?” “I hope the food in the restaurant lives up to its reputation.” “I hope I have a better night’s sleep tonight.” “I hope our candidate will be elected.” “I hope I get good exam results at the end of term.” “I hope they will give me the job.” “I hope they will bump me up the waiting list for my operation.”  The multitude of ‘hopes’ of today.

Hope is about tomorrow: Albert Einstein said, “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.” Well, he was right here, hope is about tomorrow. A Wikipedia article declares, “Hope is an optimistic state of mind that is based on an expectation of positive outcomes with respect to events and circumstances in one’s life or the world at large.” Fair enough. But note the word ‘expectation’ which I suspect for most people means not so much ‘probability’ as vaguely unfounded desire.

A foundation needed: It was Ann Frank who wrote, “I simply can’t build my hopes on a foundation of confusion, misery and death,” which is what many people feel about modern life. What this challenges us to realize is that hope needs a foundation to be real and meaningful. For the Christian, Biblical hope is a sure-fire certainty – because God has said something.

Biblical hope is about the big issues of life as our first starter verse observes: “Israel, put your HOPE in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption. He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins.” The hope the psalmist is talking about is about all these things. I like the way the Living Bible paraphrases it: “hope in the Lord; for he is loving and kind and comes to us with armloads of salvation.” Yes!

Hoping in God: So what does ‘hope in the Lord’ mean? It means trust Him in respect of who He is and all He says. A couple of studies back we considered God who is faithful, and there we saw we can utterly trust Him. Why? Because every page of the Bible (if we will bother to study it all and catch the big picture) shows us that He is consistent in His love and His goodness. More than that when I look back, I can see His hands of blessing on my history throughout.

Challenges: But our second starter verse brings us some challenges: “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.”  There is a strange spiritual truth here: trust must come first and then hope will follow. When we learn to trust Him, for who He is and what He says, then the presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit brings us that inner assurance that tomorrow will be OK. I know we have covered these things before, but we do need to reiterate them to overcome the lies that the enemy seeks to bring to distort our understanding of what goes on in life.

So after over fifty years of following the Lord and reading and studying His word, I am absolutely convinced He IS love, He IS good, and He IS perfect, so (as I’ve said before), if when we get to heaven the Lord allows us to look back with His full vision and understanding, there will be NOTHING but NOTHING that we will be able to criticize Him for.

Tomorrow? So with that in mind, when we’ve said that hope is about tomorrow, what does that mean? Well, I think ‘tomorrow’ covers two things: first, the years I have left on this planet and, second, my life in eternity.

So first of all, the years I have left. Does my hope mean I anticipate plain sailing, all going well for however many years I have? Definitely not, for we live in a Fallen World and the godless of this world are getting it wrong and that means we may suffer as a world with, say, global warming. However, God will still be there for us if we stick close to Him and His grace and wisdom, power and revelation will still be there for us.

The better: But there is still something more here. The writer to the Hebrews, speaking of Abraham, declared, “he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God,” (Heb 11:10) and speaking of all people of faith, “Instead, they were longing for a better country – a heavenly one.” (v.16) People of faith, people indwelt and sensitive to the Spirit, will always, I suggest, be people looking forward to the future, always looking forward to something better, for that is what He is doing in us, changing us to be more and more like Jesus. That is our ongoing hope. So that is the hope – the sure confidence that I have. He is my hope.

But then there’s eternity. I think the best I can say is that I believe it will outshine all our expectations. If today, this fallen world is about struggling against self, and sin, imagine what it will be like when all those things are evaporated in the glorious, unfettered, unhindered presence of God. How wonderful! Hallelujah!