Having “Hope” is an energetic approach to life and happiness. Hope is the desire that keeps us focused on our future needs, wants, and goals. The strength of our desire determines whether we succeed or quit. Hope allows us to plan our future, create new attitudes, and deal with difficulties. The Bible mentions the word hope about 129 times, and it is one of the most important virtues of the Christian alongside with faith and love. “Hope” is commonly used to mean a wish: its strength is the strength of the person’s desire. But in the Bible hope is the confident expectation of what God has promised and its strength is in His faithfulness. Hopeful people enjoy less stress and anxiety and while managing their welfare and contentment. Many times, hope is developed when a person finds a new goal or reason to live. Hope like wealth can come and go quickly depending on the person and their attitude toward life. “Hope also may very well motivate us to choose better behaviors, creating a cyclical pattern that keeps perpetuating itself. You may know someone who started taking better care of their physical health once they had grandchildren, they wanted to live a long time for or someone who finally got the job they wanted and then decided to clean up other areas of their life to go along with it. When we feel like there are the possibilities of good things ahead, we tend to strengthen those possibilities by nudging ourselves along into healthier behaviors.” (Benlor, 2021)
Hope is simply a part of being human. Everyone has things that they think about, worry about, and wish for. Things we have on our mind are hope coming forth, we may be concerned for family members, we may desire better health, or we may worry about our children, or we may want to win the lottery. All these things require hope and faith in the future. Hope can be defined as our want and desire for life to be better in some way or another. We may not conscientiously think about our hopes but hope is buried somewhere in our minds. Recognizing our hopes tend to make us want to improve the present condition and to make hard times better. Sometimes hope and faith are the only things a person has to rely upon. Hope is the fuel that allows us to accomplish things we would not otherwise be able to reach. Hope is the thoughts and daydreams that we enjoy while considering our futures. Hebrews 11:1 tells us, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
“Hope is not the same as optimism. An optimistic generally are more hopeful than others. On the other hand, the most pessimistic person you ever met can still be hopeful about something. Hope is very specific and focused, usually on just one issue. Most people associate hope with a dire situation. People hope to get out of difficult circumstances. That is often when people do find themselves hoping fervently! But hope also can provide the key to making everyday life better. (Staff, 2021) Hope is directly associated with attitude. Have you ever seen a person that had a good attitude for life that was not hopeful? Paul mentioned the word hope twelve times in the book of Romans. Paul wanted to go to Rome and preach Christianity to the citizens of Rome. Knowing Paul’s past, the amount of effort required to travel to Rome from Corinth, and what awaited him in Rome it is obvious that Paul had a great faith, desire, and hope for his mission. Paul reminds us in Romans 12:12 to, “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.” Paul helps define hope so we can understand in Romans 8:24-25 telling us, “For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” Hope seen or realized is now a reality, an event, or thing, and exists in some form in the physical world. Hope and faith do not exist in any of these forms, only in our hearts and minds. Romans 15:13 shows Paul’s belief in hope stating, “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.”
Some people would argue that it is impossible to live without hope. People have many emotions and experience many challenges. The word “desperate” is derived from the Latin phrase “without hope”. A person experiencing despair usually is experiencing a tragedy or terrible loss. A desperate person will allow this tragedy or loss to take center stage in their thoughts and emotions. Many times, this irrational emotional state will cause poor decision-making and loss of control over other emotions. Many people may succumb to desperation but they will still have hope. Hope may be buried deep within the person, hard to bring to the surface, and too difficult to enjoy, but hope is never truly lost. “Our lives, they are not so much about what happens to us or what God does or doesn’t do for us, but that we have hope in Him and His promises. And we must hope because we can’t have faith without hope. Hope activates faith: ‘Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see’ (Hebrews 1:11). We should always keep on hoping in God and His promises because hope helps us persevere through this earthly life by allowing us glimpses of eternity.” (Steve, 2013) Unfortunately, some people are weak in faith and do not believe in themselves or God. These folks are susceptible to failure and tend to give up on life events easier than most. They have buried their hope deep behind their fears and anger. Many have given in to worldly crutches and have become dependent on the wrong things to get them through. A new expression has been created by Case and Deaton at Princeton University which describes these people. “Death of Despair” is a state of being that gives up on faith and hope. There are many reasons that this occurs and the COVID situation has made things worse causing great mental distress. “One reason, to a large extent: White, working-class people ages 45 to 54 were drinking themselves to death with alcohol, accidentally overdosing on opioids and other drugs, and killing themselves, often by shooting or hanging. Vanishing jobs, disintegrating families, and other social stressors had unleashed a rising tide of fatal despair, Case and Deaton concluded. This disturbing trend mirrored what had previously occurred among inner-city Black people in the 1970s and 1980s, Case and Deaton now say. As low-skilled jobs vanished and families broke apart, Black victims of crack cocaine and the AIDS epidemic represented an early wave of deaths of despair. Even today, mortality rates for Black people still exceed those of white people in the United States for a variety of reasons, with Black overdose deaths on the rise over the last few years.” (Bower, 2020) First Corinthians 10:13 tells us God will not give us more than we can handle and he will always give us a way to avoid problems. But the devil is always there pushing us to give up, use the crutches the devil will gladly provide to us. The devil is always happy for a person to end their life while under his control. Hope and faith are tools used to battle the devil but he is quick to take both hope and faith away and replace them with hate, despair, and hopelessness. By continuing the strengthening of our faith, love, and hope we can defend against evil. James 4:7 instructs us to, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
Benlor, A. (2021, 3 30). Psychology Today. Retrieved from The Health Benefits of Hope: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/friendship-20/202103/the-health-benefits-hope
Bower, B. (2020, 11 2). ScienceNews. Retrieved from Death and Despair are Rising: It is time to Define Despair: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/deaths-of-despair-depression-mental-health-covid-19-pandemic
Staff. (2021). Hope Grows. Retrieved from Why Is Hope So Important: https://hopegrows.net/news/why-is-hope-so-important
Steve. (2013, 9 10). Steves Bible Meditation. Retrieved from Hope Springs Eternal: https://stevesbiblemeditations.com/2013/09/10/hope-springs-eternal-ephesians-212