Hope

How do you define hope?  We were asked that question in our life group class last week.  The answers varied from person to person.  What I noticed most were that a person's answers were often defined by their life experiences.  In Proverbs, the Bible says that "Hope deferred makes the heart sick but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life".  I like that.  Hope is sometimes all that we are left with.  Hope that a cure will come quickly.  Hope that a job will become available. Hope that our children will ______(fill in the blank).  Hope, a small four letter word that can mean so many different things to each person in so many different ways. 

 I know where my hope comes from. I know in Whom I trust.  Without my hope in Jesus, I would have no hope. My husband often says, " this life is so temporary, it is gone in the snap of a finger. And the good news is we win. God has already written the end of the story". 

The world around is always in turmoil. All we have to do is turn on the news and see war, famine, earthquakes, terror, floods, injustice, violence, disease and on and on the list goes.  I believe that if we didn't have hope of survival, hope of rescue, hope of a better day, we would all give up and
our hearts would be sick.  Perhaps you know someone who's heart is sick because they have no hope.
If you have hope, share your hope. If you have no hope, find your hope


1 Peter 1:3-5

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade - kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.