Hope has the last word

 

View of the smog covered city of Santiago
from San Cristobal Hill Chile 

Beloved, what happens when your hope does not speak to a specific thing? When your situation is so bleak that you cannot even see the horizon? When everything in your life appears to be blanketed in smog?

You’re trying to remain hopeful, but you can’t even complete your sentence of hope…

“I hope for” or “I hope that” It’s just so much happening, or not, that you don’t know where to turn or to whom.

Can you still cling to hope when everything is pointing to hopeless?

What to do?

In times of challenge, we must cling to hope. Not the hope that is characterized by wishful thinking but the hope that is firmly grounded in the God of hope.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

(Romans 15:13 ESV)

God is the source of the type of hope that you need to endure the rigors of life. He wants for you to live a believing life that overflows with His hope.

But how do you cultivate the hope that is required to face each day when all seems lost? The answer lies in the passage of Scripture that you just read.  

It’s surrendering control of your life to God daily, allowing His indwelling Spirit to work in you and, as your dependence on Him increases, the more you will walk in belief and the more you believe, the greater His power will work within you, and this empowerment will lead to the manifestation of joy and not-of-this-world peace, which then cultivates that brimming-over hope.

Hope that will not fail.

To truly live in this God-of-hope hope, you must detach from your own preconceived-outcome hope. Divorce hope from “for” and “that”, leaving the sentence open, believing God for the result.

God Himself is saying to you,

“I have good plans for you. I don’t plan to hurt you. I plan to give you hope and a good future.”

This eleventh verse from Jeremiah chapter twenty nine is so used that it’s overused but it is what it is and is God’s perfect reassurance that He has planned a good future for you.

So, believe God for the “I will give you the future you hope for” and believe that He will align your hope with His, allowing your future to become the one you hope for.

Beloved, to live a spiritual life that matters, hope must have the last word.

Amen †

Shelley Johnson “Hope has the last word” © 2025 June 21, 2025