Advent, The Season of Hope

In this season of Advent, the first week’s theme is hope. The hope of a promised deliverer. Hope for a Messiah that will save us.  Hope for a king that will rule in righteousness and justice.

Hope!

Hope is what we need today more than any gift under a tree. Hope is what will get us through dark valleys and lonely nights. Hope is what will carry us through the receiving of bad news, long days of sickness, the devastation of broken relationships, and the consequences of bad decisions.

Hope that tomorrow will be better. Hope that we will see another sunset with the ones that we love. Hope that we can have peace in our lives and joy in our hearts.

As we enter this Christmas season, let us slow down for a minute and think about hope.

In today’s lingo, hope means little more than wishful thinking.  I hope that I get that new job.  I hope my children come to see me more often. I hope that I don’t get cancer.  I hope I don’t get a flat tire on the way to work.

It’s all just wishful thinking, a desire for something good to happen.

But the hope that the Bible talks about is a confident expectation of good.  Do you see the difference?

A desire for something to happen versus a confident expectation of good.

Wishful thinking versus confident expectation.

Three Things Hope Involves

Hope involves waiting. 

Hope isn’t hoping if what you are expecting comes right when you expect it. If there is no waiting involved then hope is not needed.  The Jewish people had been waiting for centuries for their promised Messiah. They had prophecies but no timeline.

They were waiting for his arrival, his advent. (Advent is from the Latin word meaning arrival or coming).

Many times, we have to wait on God to move in our lives.  We pray prayers of expectation but then we have to wait.  It’s in the waiting that we learn to trust.  It’s in the waiting that we learn patience. 

But it’s also in the waiting that we sometimes give up. In the waiting, we can lose hope.

I want to encourage you to not lose hope in the waiting.  God will not abandon nor forget you.  He promised a Messiah. And he delivered a Messiah in the fullness of time (Gal. 4:4). In other words, God will send what you need when he deems the time is right. Until then you must wait in the confident expectation that something good is coming.

Hope involves expectancy.

When you hope for something you are expecting something to happen.  Despair and hope are polar opposites. Despair comes from worry, and worry is simply fear that something bad could or is going to happen. Hope carries an expectation of good.

God is not the God of despair but of hope. Jesus promised that God knows what we need and will supply what we need (Matt. 6:25-34).  Paul tells us that God will supply all our needs according to his riches in glory (Phil. 4:19).  As my friend Torrey Montgomery put on a tshirt, “The kingdom of Heaven is not in crisis.” (kingdomgospelvault.com).

Because God is a God of hope, we can expect good things for our lives. That doesn’t mean we won’t ever have bad things happen. On the contrary, bad things happen to good people all the time…it’s part of life. But, when bad things happen, we have the hope that God will use all things (good and bad) that happen to us and bring forth good things out of them.

Check your expectations!  Are you expecting good things or bad things?  Just a word of caution though, don’t be dismayed when God answers your prayers in ways you weren’t expecting.  Keep your expectation in his goodness, not in the way you want your prayer answered.

Hope involves trust.

To believe a promise, one must trust the promise maker. To place my hope in the words of Jesus about his Father’s love and concern for me, I must trust Jesus.  I can’t trust his words without trusting his character and who he is.

If I am to have hope in God then I must learn to trust God. Hope doesn’t come without some level of trust.

I trust therefore I have hope. I can put hope in the words of those that I trust. If I lack trust then I will not have hope.

Find Hope Again

As we go through Advent, I encourage you to slow down and allow yourself to find hope again. If you have lost hope, ask the Father to restore your hope. If you find yourself in despair, ask yourself if you are struggling to wait, to trust, or to have confident expectations.

For a long time, I’ve lived without much hope due to circumstances beyond my control. I felt despair and discouragement. But things have changed! The change came when I accepted that things are the way they are (my reality) but that they could change. I changed my outlook from despair to hope by being willing to wait, changing my expectations from bad to good, and choosing to trust God’s goodness even when I didn’t see him using his ability on my behalf.

I am praying for those of you that may have lost hope. This is my prayer for you:

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13)