OVERFLOWING WITH HOPE

Hope is one of those words that needs a better, stronger definition.

Too often, the way we think and talk about hope feels like wishful thinking or perhaps a remote possibility, as desirable as it might be. But hope is so much more than that. Hope is not feeling vaguely positive about the future; instead, the practice of hope is the present reality of living in the light of what we believe matters most and what we know will endure into God’s future, whatever our present circumstances might be.

As such, hope is a Christian imperative: “It has been well said that a true Christian should have but one fear—lest he [or she] should not hope enough.”* In fact, Paul went so far as to suggest that followers of Jesus should “overflow with hope.” For Paul, God was the “God of hope” who fills us with joy and peace as we put our trust in Him.

Such confidence in God comes with the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. It was a remarkable message for the Christians in Rome, a place in which being a believer would have felt particularly precarious with the ever-looming threat of persecution.

As people who follow a God of hope, we have good reason for hope. But we can also have hope amid the circumstances and in contradiction of the evidence around us when we might not see or feel the possibilities for hope.

At those times, practicing hope is how we trust.

And that is the source of all joy and peace.

* Walter Elliot, The Spiritual Life, 2nd ed. (New York: The Paulist Press, 1918), 144.