A Few Ways to Generate Hope

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick,but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” (Proverbs 13:12)

How many times a week do you remind yourself, as a Christian, about the hope that lives within you? There are too many discouraging and disheartening events in our world for any of us to not have hope. And the Bible is filled with reasons to be hopeful.

But, we can quickly forget why we should be hopeful. The Christian should be the most hopeful person in the world. People should think we are crazy because we are so hopeful. Some verses that come to mind that generate hope are as follows;

Paul says, “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Rom 8:29).

Paul told the Church of Corinth, “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. …” (II Cor 3:18).

To the church of Philippi, Paul wrote, “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself” (Phil 3:20-21).

And to the church in Colossae, Paul said, “When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (Col 3:4).  

But, again, hope can be quickly forgotten.

So, what can we do to maintain our hope – to encourage regularly hopeful thinking and meditations? Let me give you 3 suggestions.

First, read the Bible often. Paul says in Romans 15:4, “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” I can promise you that if you know the Lord you will not lay on your death bed and think to yourself, “I wish I had watched more TV or slept more or planted more flowers in my garden.” You want hope? Get into the Bible and see the entire narrative that builds and leads to why we are to hope.

Second, have a clear conscience. Harboring sin in your heart is poison when it comes to building hope. Why? Because the sinner is always afraid to look at the face of God. He is ashamed of His sin; he wants to hide from God; he doesn’t want to be found out. The Puritan William Gurnall wrote, “All sin brings trembling fears and shakings of heart to the person who tampers with it. … Sins produce a lifeless Christian and make thoughts of God dreadful to him. … They make the man afraid to look on the God of judgment. After all, does the servant want his master to come home and find him drunk?” (The Christian in Complete Armour, Vol. 3, pg. 209).

Third, learn from the past. The songwriters in the Psalter are masters of remembering the past when his life circumstances seemed hopeless. On one occasion, in Psalm 77 the psalmist talks about crying out to God and moaning because of his pains and yet the one thing he clung to were “the days of old.” He remembered how faithful God has been and will continue to be.

I have heard that when a blood hound loses his scent, he hunts backwards to recover it and then when he finds it, he hunts his prey with an even stronger intensity. So, the Christian ought to have an even stronger hope when he considers what God has always done and continues to do throughout history. He is a Sovereign God who has never lost control of His universe.