^{without hope, we perish}

^“ Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; ²⁴ and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds.” Hebrews 10:23-24 (NASB77)

Hope in our everyday world can mean many things. Sometimes we say, “I hope it doesn’t rain on Sunday,” meaning we wish it wouldn’t rain. Sometimes we say, “We certainly hope so,” in response to someone’s predicting a win for the home team, meaning we don’t necessarily believe it will happen, but we would like it to be true. Hope can be defined as our faith in the future being safe and predictable. In fact a degree of hope is essential to our ability to face even daily tasks. Alexander Solzehnietzen reports the most extreme example of the lack of hope in his book, “Gulag Archipelago.” He writes of convicts called ‘goners’. These were men who had given up hope and were already dead on their feet. They shuffled along listlessly and stared vacantly into space, but it was all over for them. Why? Because they had given up hope of ever obtaining freedom! A less significant present day example is the numbers of people who have been unemployed for many months and have given up hope of ever finding employment. Further, the increasing number of suicides among our armed forces stationed in current war zones may reflect their lack of hope of ever returning home alive or uninjured.

However, for believers hope is based on our faith in God providing for our needs based on past experiences. The Bible contains numerous accounts of His faithfulness to His people through out the years and we have His assurance He will continue to do so. Consequently, a believer should never be bereft of hope. Although this sounds idealistic our hope is always is always in danger by those in our society who are ‘hope stealers’. If asked specify the most dangerous person in any society, what type of person would come to mind? The psychopath? The person to be most feared isn’t the psychopath! The most dangerous person to have around isn’t the murderer, the molester or the lunatic. It is the cynic! The cynic always plays down possible favorable outcomes regardless of the nature of the task. Typical comments are, “Why bother?” “What’s the use?” “It will never work!” “We tried that before and it didn’t work!” How many times have you heard one or more of these comments when you were ready to undertake a task?

Most of us have had the experience of starting a day full of hope and then the ‘hope-stealers’ come along and take away from our enthusiasm and dreams. These ‘hope stealers’ use the criticism of others; difficult circumstances; feeling of rejection, lack of support, or self-doubt as reason for failure. Each of these factors can have a negative influence on our hopes. How can we cope with this negativism? It is important to note that no one can make you feel badly about yourself without your permission. Think about this the next time you are fuming about something someone said or did to you.

Some years ago my wife was undergoing open-heart surgery and the possibility of losing my love-mate shaded all my thoughts and feelings. My well-meaning friends remarked to me “Where there’s life there is hope” and while this is true, the opposite is equally valid, “Where there is hope, there is life!” If we have no hope, life becomes empty and lacks verve. The daily quest for each of us is to rediscover the truth that out hope lies in Him and His promise to be with us. Hope is God’s gift and without such hope our faith collapses and the individual gives up. However, His hope is available for the asking and only the fool ignores it! Each believer has this source and can join with Jeremiah in exclaiming, “The Lord is my portion, and therefore I will put my hope in Him.” Lamentations 3:24 (HCSB) Amen