One of the most beloved verses in the Bible is 1 Corinthians 13:13:  “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”  We talk a lot about faith and love, but sometimes I think we forget hope.  Love may be the greatest thing, but hope is very important too.

What is hope?  The Dictionary defines it as “A feeling of expectation, a feeling of trust, or a desire for a certain thing to happen.”  Some people are naturally hopeful – we call them optimists.  Other need to learn to have hope.  And sometimes, having hope – believing that anything good can happen in the future – is almost impossible for us.

We can get so beaten down by circumstances that we think we will never be able to get up again.  Or we can live in an environment so devoid of hope that we never consider it as an option.

Patricia Livingston, in her book “Praying,” writes, “Hope is not the naive expectation that all will go smoothly, that desolation will remain a stranger.  It is a conviction that God will always be with us in whatever happens.”  This goes to the second definition of hope:  a feeling of trust.

So many of the people I care about are going through difficult times right now, and I cannot be there with them to help.  I can talk to them and text them, but often when we are depressed, in despair, struggling, we draw into ourselves and don’t take the hand hat reaches out to us.  So one more thing I can do for these folks is to pray that they will have hope, that they will be able to trust in God, to cling to Jesus.

Psalm 56:3-4 says,

When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.
In God, whose word I praise—
in God I trust and am not afraid.
What can mere mortals do to me?

In God I trust and am not afraid.  In God I place my hope, my future, knowing he is trustworthy in all things.  In Jesus Christ my future is secure. It doesn’t matter what happens day to day because I have placed my trust in his salvation.

i love the hymn “My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less” and I leave you with these words today, praying that they may help you hope:

1 My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
Refrain:
On Christ, the solid rock, I stand;
all other ground is sinking sand,
all other ground is sinking sand.
2 When darkness veils his lovely face,
I rest on his unchanging grace;
in every high and stormy gale,
my anchor holds within the veil.

Refrain:
On Christ, the solid rock, I stand;
all other ground is sinking sand,
all other ground is sinking sand.
3 His oath, his covenant, his blood
support me in the whelming flood;
when all around my soul gives way,
he then is all my hope and stay.

Refrain:
On Christ, the solid rock, I stand;
all other ground is sinking sand,
all other ground is sinking sand.