(Come and get me Disney!) But seriously, as we embark on a brand new year, we need brand new hope. Over this past year I have personally learned a lot about hope. For instance, did you know there are different types of hope?
In our culture and language we use the word hope rather casually. I hope it doesn’t rain, I hope my team wins, etc. In this way hope is more like fate or a fortune in a fortune cookie…it may or may not come true. This was my understanding of hope for a long time, a strong desire for a certain outcome but with no assurance of results. And then I got to a place in life where I didn’t even feel that. I found myself as close to hopelessness as I had ever been. That is when I learned that hope is much, much more than I had ever realized.
God gently led me to how hope is defined and used in the Bible. The first meaning He showed me blew me away. It is defined as, “Hope, not in the sense of an optimistic outlook, (which was good because I had lost all sense of optimism) or wishful thinking without any foundation, but in the sense of confident expectation based on solid certainty.”* This type of hope can be solid because it is not based on circumstances, or my feelings about them, but on the promises God gives me in the Bible. Hope like this covers all kinds of fears and worries. If I am worried about finances I can read Matthew 6:31-34 where Jesus is assuring the people that God knows our needs and will provide for them. If I am afraid I see in II Timothy that God has not given me a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind. When I worry about my children I can turn to the book of Isaiah and find that all my children will be taught of God and great will be their peace. (Isaiah 54:13)
There is another type of hope that the Bible talks about as well. This is the definition that I think we all need to cling to as we walk into this new year: “Expectation; something yearned for and anticipated eagerly; something for which one waits. To look hopefully in a particular direction.”* I believe every one of us has been looking in the direction of a new year, hoping for change.
So if we put these two definitions of hope together, we can find ourselves eagerly and confidently entering this new year. We can have the expectation that our God will provide everything we need. He will fulfill all His promises to us and fill us once again with a new hope.
“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1
*These definitions are from the Strong’s concordance. I did not copy them out exactly. They are numbers 1680 and 8615 respectively if you would like to look them up.
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