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by Sharron Hudson, Lt. Colonel –
Have you ever had a word, phrase or song that just keeps coming up in your mind? There is one word that I have been thinking about and I just can’t seem to stop! That word is HOPE. I’m not exactly sure why—perhaps because of several things:
…the pictures we see of those devastated by natural disaster
…promises made during an election
…watching the lives of friends who have lost a loved one to this world
…helping those struggling with physical and mental pain
Isn’t it interesting that the word “hope” arises out of such situations? In a Bible word study on “hope,” I discovered that it is used many times in both the Book of Job (19 times) and the Psalms (32 times). Let’s take a look at a few.
Even though Job and his friends questioned what was happening to him, Job tells them, Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him; I will surely defend my ways to his face (Job 15:13).
The psalmist doesn’t understand why he is so depressed but still makes this statement three times in Psalms 42 and 43: Why are you so downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God (42:5, 11; 43:5). Hope makes the top three lasting attributes in 1 Corinthians 13:13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love…
One of the most disappointing movies I went to last year was supposed to be a comedy. It was called The Invention of Lying. The people in this town always said what was on their minds because they could not tell lies. But the main character, Ricky, discovered that when he began to lie, he automatically got what he wanted. Then the day came when he was sitting at the bedside of his dying mother. He wanted her to feel better, so he told her a nice story, a “lie” about what will happen to her. The lie? That she was going to go to a beautiful place where there would be no more pain or suffering—a place where she would see her family again and live in a mansion. Sound familiar? Of course, he was describing heaven, and now everyone wanted to know what he knew. So the movie portrays him as a Moses giving out more and more “lies,” telling the people what they wanted to hear.
While many in this world mock our beliefs and question our sanity, consider these words from Proverbs 24:19-20, Do not fret because of evil men or be envious of the wicked, for the evil man has no future hope, and the lamp of the wicked will be snuffed out.
The devotional, Our Daily Bread, tells of the life of the famous atheist Jean-Paul Sartre, the Father of Humanism. He “declared that he so strongly resisted feelings of despair that he would say to himself, ‘I know I shall die in hope.’ Then in profound sadness, he would add, ‘But hope needs a foundation.’”
I choose to believe and agree with the writer of Hebrews 10:23 (NLT):
Without wavering, let us hold tightly
to the hope we say we have,
for God can be trusted to keep his promise.
to the hope we say we have,
for God can be trusted to keep his promise.
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