hope
The word hope is so common in our everyday language, it’s easy to gloss over. It’s a word we use all our lives. We see it, read it, accept it, and move on without any hesitation at all. It has evolved into something a little different for me though. It’s a word that I struggle with. In all honesty, it has even become a tainted, dirty word in my mind. A word that carries the weight of disappointment from past experiences. It’s not without conviction though. It’s an area that keeps coming up, that God is longing to journey with me on and remove the dirt.
When it comes to hope, I seem to put myself in a self-protective state. I don’t want to be let down again, so I hope for things that are either guarantees or things that simply don’t matter in the long run. Things that if they don’t happen, then I won’t be disappointed. But really, is that even hope? There is a piece missing when I approach hope as a wish list. Hope isn’t just desire, it’s desire with anticipation. When we hope for something, it carries an expectation and maybe even a confidence that it will happen, and when it does, we expect things will be better.
So here it comes. The cliché any Christian, and likely others as well, would expect in a Christian focused writing: I put my hope in Jesus. I’ve heard it a thousand times, and it’s true. I believe it, but the question isn’t should I put my hope in Jesus, but how do I put my hope in Jesus? What does it look like?
When I put my hope in Jesus, it is the act of removing my hope in other things. I can’t put my hope anywhere else if I put it all in Jesus. Putting my hope in Jesus means Jesus is my hope. His hopes are my hopes. I no longer need to be concerned or disappointed if those hopes don’t become a reality because they are out of my hands – not because I have given up, but because I have released it. Giving up means walking away, quitting. Releasing is letting go, letting someone more qualified handle it. When I let myself trust and focus on Jesus, He becomes my guide and my hope for the best possible outcome.
If Jesus is my hope, then the expectations of my desires shift to expectancy. A posture that allows room for Jesus to work, without saddling Him with expectations that He will work in the way that I want Him to and in the timeline I want. Jesus is truth, love, peace, strength. He is Lord, God, beauty, and kind. He is real, undeniable, perfect, and amazing. Since Jesus is all of these things, and He is my hope, then my hope must be all these things too. If I release my hope for things I want – and replace it with Jesus…
I hope I can love my kids and wife and lead them well for Jesus.
I hope I can get ahead at work to provide for myself and family for Jesus.
It’s a subtle shift, but it moves me from expectation to expectancy. My focus is now on Jesus and off getting things done. I release what I can’t handle or control, and trust that He loves me enough to take care of me and those close to me. He can do it better than me, so I need to let go.
It is only when my hopes align with Jesus that my life will begin to look the way He hopes it would. I’m giving the responsibility of the things I just can’t handle in my own life to the one that handles it all. Only then can I experience life the way the creator, who created me, desires and designed His creation to be. A life with hope.
Jesus – You. are. my. hope. I hope for You and nothing but You. I know I need hope, and fortunately, I have you. I need You, so therefore I have hope. I release now anything I am holding on to that you don’t desire for me. I trust that you know better and can do better with it. It won’t be easy to stick with this, so I need your help there too. Whenever I hear myself hoping for something, let me hope for You instead. Nothing can compare to You. Thank You for all that you are. I praise your name. May my eyes be opened to real hope today. In Jesus’ name – Amen.