Thoughts on Hope

I had the opportunity to speak on hope several times this past month at church. I wanted to share some things I learned regarding hope while preparing.

What is hope?

Hope is often associated with faith, and for obvious reasons. Faith relates to our belief in things that are unknown or unseen. Hope relates to our earnest belief that something good will occur in the future. One could argue that faith is a superset of hope (i.e to have hope is to have faith that something good will happen). I’m not sure if that is a good assessment, but I can understand how the two can often be confused.

What should we hope for?

We speak of having hope for many things. We hope for good weather. We hope to get a new job. We hope our kids will be happy and make good choices. Some of these are whimsical expressions of desire, some are self-serving aspirations, and others come from a deep love for those around us.

However these hopes suffer from a flaw. We have very little control over their fulfillment. The weather is completely beyond our control. While we may work hard, that new job is ultimately another person’s choice to bestow on us. And there are many a son who has left the path his parents have set for him.

Jeremiah said “Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord and whose hope the Lord is”¹. Joel states that the Lord is the hope of his people². Our hope must be in the Lord and His promises to us, otherwise we are placing hope on things of the world, ourselves or our own desires. All of those are dead and have no power to actualize themselves. God, however, is faithful in His promises.

Why Do we need hope?

The question I’ve often had regarding hope is: Why is it necessary? Why is it so important? Especially when we put it alongside faith, and charity. Indeed ought we not be able to be saved as long as we have faith, even if we feel we have no hope?

However hope is more than just a desire for future good. It can and should be more than just wishful anticipation. Hope is similar to faith. Faith precedes and feeds our desire to be obedient to God’s will. Hope will precede and feed our desire to bring about the good that we hope for; to bring good into the world.³

C.S Lewis makes this point in mere Christianity. He says:

The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelists who abolished the slave trade, all left their marks on earth precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.

So returning to the question: Why do we need hope? Because hope is a visionary virtue, one that emboldens us to go “about doing good”⁴, just as our Savior did. Indeed our discipleship demands it of us.

I hope that this has been helpful for you in achieving a more “perfect brightness of hope”⁵. It has helped me to better see the way I believe God want’s us all to see.

• Hope
• Virtues