I confess to an off and on mood of hopelessness lately. If it’s not Covid, it’s the ridiculous misinformation about it and the needless, senseless deaths that result. If not an evil Russian autocrat, the murder of innocent women and children in hospitals, churches, and apartment buildings in Ukraine. If not… Well, I could go on, but let’s put our attention not on hope’s absence but its presence.
“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.” Romans 15:13
Our hope comes from… wait for it… “The God of hope!”
He’s hope’s Source. Want hope? Go to him. Want shoes? Go to a store where they sell shoes, not 7-11. They have those hot dogs that roll around all day on that warmer. (Can’t be healthy!) Want hope? Go to God.
Along with hope comes an ample supply of joy and peace.
Peace and joy are hope’s siblings. You might even call them triplets, as they are similar experiences and usually travel together. Hope is the most stable of the three. Without it, peace and joy are more fleeting than enduring, and can be nothing more than mental gymnastics. But when the three are together, well, that’s a good day!
Trust is the combination to the “Hope Chest”
Trust is something more than what we usually think of as “faith.” Faith, at least how we typically speak of it, is more static, like a general conviction, a belief in something/someone. Trust seems more personal, more dependent. Faith, for some is simply cerebral, whereas trust is cardiac (settled in the heart). Demons “believe.” Christians trust.
When you have too much hope to contain!
Seems unlikely, doesn’t it, but we can have so much hope that it “overflows” onto others, especially onto the otherwise hopeless. This should be our goal in all God’s good gifts, to have so much of it (hope included) that it spills over the top and gets all over our neighbors! Hoarders of hope, we’re not!
Holy Spirit: Our Initiator and Sustainer of hope.
Having a tough time acquiring or sustaining a posture of hope? Lean into the Spirit. Ask him for an attitude adjustment, a mental correction, a spiritual connection with the eternal (those things which are “not seen” as opposed to those which are).
Keep hope alive, sisters and brothers!
barney wiget 
Amen
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Shortly after bidens inaugural he went to meet with Putin. The leaders met then they had separate press conferences. At putins he was asked if He was hopeful of good a relationship with the US . He said in short and paraphrasing, hope is an illusion. Maybe a better question could have been, what actions are you going to take for better relations. Putin might not have given much of an answer. And maybe he was glad of the hope question. Easy to get off the hook on that one. I hope so, is the answer politicians give when they don’t know or typically don’t want to answer something. Seems the idea of hope has been co-opted . Man, talking about going to 7-11 and asking about hope? Putin has some hot dogs for ya. I don’t think hope is part of his world view. That Putin press conference was chilling but very real. And I have generally stopped using the word hope since. I’m trying think of it as more of a sacred word.
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