Lead me by your truth and teach me, for you are the God who saves me. All day long I put my hope in you. [Psalm 25:5 (NLT)]

We hope: the house will sell, we’ll “ace” the test, the stock market will rise, the biopsy will be benign, the relationship will improve, it won’t rain on the picnic, the plane will be on time, the raise will come, the lottery ticket will pay off, or the cure will be found. Is that hope or simply wishful thinking?

Christian hope is neither hope in specific circumstances nor mindless optimism; it is hope in God. It is the confidence that no matter how those other situations turn out, God will get us through them all. Christian hope means we trust what God has promised; it is a confidence in His word. His word, however, has nothing to do with travel schedules, good weather, winning lotto numbers, or even pathology reports.

Hope in God means that we’ll have the strength to stand strong, the ability to keep going in the face of adversity, the capability to forgive, and the capacity to return good for evil and love for hate. Hope in God allows us to be joyful in all circumstances. It reassures us that God is in charge and He will do what is right. We don’t just dream of good in the future, we expect it to happen; it’s just that the rosy future may be further away than tomorrow and will last for eternity.

How do we build our hope in God? Hope is a portion or part of faith. Faith and hope, in my mind, are overlapping realities: hope is faith in the future tense. So most of faith is hope. [John Piper]

I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit. [Romans 15:13 (NLT)]