Hope

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Psalm 31:24     Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the LORD.

Psalm 33:18     Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him, on those who hope in His steadfast love,

Psalm 42:11      Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?  Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.

Psalm 71:14      But I will hope continually and will praise you yet more and more.

Psalm 119:114    You are my hiding place and my shield; I have put my hope in your word

Psalm 130:7     O Israel, hope in the Lord!  For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption.

Lamentations 3:24     “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”

Micah 7:7     But as for me, I watch in hope for the LORD, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.

Matthew 12:21     In His name the nations will put their hope.

Romans 5:5     And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Romans 12:12     Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.

Romans 15:13     May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

Galatians 5:5     For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope.

Hebrews 10:23     Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

Hebrews 11:1      Faith is the substance of things hoped for.

1 Timothy 4:10     For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.

1 Timothy 6:17     Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.

1 Peter 3:15     but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.

 

As young children, I can remember my brother and I hoping for things.  Sometimes it was a new pair of sneakers, or a baseball or mitt, or for me a Barbie or some other doll which had caught my eye.  We wanted different things we saw on TV (black and white then), but there was Roy Rogers and Trigger, or sometimes, we hoped to be able to have Nestles Quick in our milk which was normally only a once weekly treat.  But the point is, from a young age, we hoped for things.  We didn’t get them all the time–sometimes we were disobedient, sometimes the parents forgot, sometimes they decided we had had enough sweets, and needed to wait until “Saturday.”  It was particularly tough to wait for Christmas hoping for this or that, and then it took FOREVER for the day to arrive.  We hoped for a gift, we hoped to see Santa in the house, we hoped to hear him and the reindeer on the roof, and since it was winter in New England, we hoped for a new sled, toboggan, or ice skates.  

It was often the excitement of the hope and what would come.  But the feeling of hoping and the enthusiasm was real, and expectant.  And I have been able to see that same excited expectation with my own children and with the grandchildren.  

Even newborns have a sense of hope.  They cry and hope to be fed; cry and hope to be changed; cry and hope to be held, burped and so forth.  If those needs are not routinely met, and they are not stimulated they become babies known as “failure to thrive.”  They lose hope, they don’t interact, there is no hope in their little minds that their needs will be met.  Generally, they stop making eye contact, they lie quiet, mostly silent as they have learned in their very short lives, that their needs will not be met.  It takes a lot of work to get these babies to learn to interact and that is IF they do.  Sometimes the damage has imbedded and these children are labeled as autistic or on the spectrum for needing a lot of extra help throughout life

As we age, our hopes and dreams change.  We still hope, want and get excited about things–an upcoming marriage, or baby going to be added to the family, or a new home.  There are things that we  are excited to be seeing come to fruition.   

But especially once one becomes a Christian, your hope changes, matures.  Now you hope for a deeper relationship with Jesus, to know God and the Holy Spirit more intimately.  You hope you have waited and truly dug out God’s plan for your life.   You hope you are doing your best daily, and examining your day at the end of each, you hope you can be better the next day.   Once you have recognized and claimed Jesus as your Lord and Savior, confessed your sins, and started to become a ‘new creation’ you recognize you have assurance of the biggest hope ever.  You know, not just hope, that Jesus is preparing a place for you.  Hope is attained.

We hope a lot throughout our lives.  Many of these hopes we pray about before they are an issue.  We pray our children will be safe when we send them out the door, we pray they will do their best in whatever they are working at–whether it be school work, sports, or as they get older, they start jobs and learn the importance of finishing and finishing well, we pray they will stay safe from drugs, and from the evils and demon temptations in this world.  Our hope for them is laid out in prayer before our Lord.   

We hope illness will not touch us or our family.  Our hope may be for complete healing–but when healing perhaps does not come, or there are profound effects post illness changing the lives of the caregivers and family.  There may be anger in the patient, and that can be directed at caregivers, family members, self, doctors and anyone who might come in their path.  To them, at the time, hope has disappeared.  Difficult time for all.  Once we realize complete healing is no longer the hope (it can still be a prayer as we have an AWESOME GOD in our lives), but the hope is gone as the new reality sets in.  Now a new hope to fit the changed circumstances needs to develop.  The prayer may also change–to keep our loved one comfortable, give them the ability and reason to do their physical best–work hard at PT, optimize the best you can be with God’s help, and be confident in what God has for you.  But hard to do when it is YOUR body that has been insulted.   And yet aren’t those some of the most amazing true stories you have ever come across?

We are born with is an inborn desire to know God, or some higher being.  There are some persons who recognize they are missing something. . . Some fill the desires with phone, social media, games, drugs, alcohol, gambling, and other means of distraction; and therefore, don’t find the TRUE fulfillment of the emptiness in their lives.  They recognize the hole, but refuse to consider that Jesus MIGHT be the answer.  Often it is a hard NO–until He tugs often enough and hard enough to get a surrender.  Jesus is all the hope and expectation one needs.    

The knocking and seeking and having our requests answered is to FIND, Know, LOVE and REVERE God in the entirety, and then our wishes, desires will be fulfilled in His will.  He does have a plan for happiness, safety and good things for those who believe in Him.   God is love.  He created man to have a relationship with him.  God enjoyed His time with the first two humans He created and visited with in the Garden.  He wanted to then, and wants now, to have a relationship with those He created.  God wants, HOPES, no one will perish, by choosing sin and pride and stubbornness, rather than repentance, turning from sin and knowing that God’s Son died for each of us and for OUR sins, taking them ALL on Himself.

God, the Father and Jesus, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are HOPE–the only hope that is steady and the only one we need.  If we know Him and have the hope for eternal life with Him and have asked for our sins to be forgiven–we have the ASSURANCE of eternal life with Him.  The alternative is eternal life burning in hell-fires–forever separated from God.

Jesus thank You for being patient with me, and steadily steering me to know You better and better.  You have richly blessed me and ‘mybelllaviews.’