As humans, we need food, air and water to survive. 

And hope.  Yes, hope.

The opposite of hope is doubt.  When we doubt something, we have a lack of confidence in it.  We’re unsure.  It can be a state in which we are always looking to the negative outcome.  It’s not belief or unbelief; it is a state somewhere in-between.  Doubt is uncertainty.  So, if when we doubt, we’re uncertain then hope relates to certainty.  In part, hope is a state of confidence that what we desire to happen will happen. 

But hope is more complex than just wanting something to come true.  It is not wishful thinking.  Czech politician and writer Vaclav Havel is quoted with the following: “Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out.”  As humans, we hope that things happen in the way we want them to but above that we have a need to have it all come together in a way that creates some level of understanding or a positive outcome that we didn’t foresee.

There are so many things we hope for that are not meant to be because we hope for things with narrow vision.  We can’t see the whole picture and what we hope for may not be for our own good or for the good of others.  We need to have our hopes connected to Someone with perfect vision who sees the consequences of our hopes coming true.  We need Someone looking out for us.  If everything we’ve ever hoped for came true then there would be chaos.  If I hope for something and you hope for something and they are opposite ... then what?  We need God to sort it out and to enact His perfect plan with His perfect knowledge.  Hope is about having faith in God’s plan and believing, as it says in Romans 8:28 “...that all things work together for good to those who love God....”

For me, hope can’t exist without faith.  They are inextricably interwoven.  In Hebrews 1:11, it says: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”  Hope is about having faith in God and knowing He is always right.  It is the confident assurance that God is in control.

I think hope is such an integral part of our survival that we have a hard time distinguishing it.  It is part of every breath we take.  It is because we hope that we can live each day and move forward in dark times.  In Matthew 12:21 we are told this about Jesus: “And his name will be the hope of all the world.”  So even though we may be surrounded by defeat, by sadness, by fear, by adversity, by sickness, by loneliness – we always have the blessing of hope from God that He will lift us up and take us through this world triumphantly. 

Hope is what sees us through to tomorrow.  It is a mechanism of change.  A breath of promise.  A light of purpose.  A tool for survival.  A possibility.  A firm place on which to stand.  Hope, above all, is a gift from God.