Hope.

Hope is a word we hear a lot today. Hope is a word that Pres. Obama used during his campaign. The fact that we hear this word so much points to our significantly lacking culture and society.

We fear that we are heading in the wrong direction, we are looking for someone to point us back in the right direction, we want change.

This is not a post about Pres. Obama, this is about hope, and what that is, and where we get it.

Hope is our expectations. Over the last month, hope has been clarified with two separate definitions. There is hope from God, and then theres hope that the world gives us.

"Hope that the world has, is what we would call, "wishful thinking." It is hope without a foundation. It likes hoping you win the lottery.

Then there is hope from God, as Romans 15 verse 13 says: "I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit."(NLT)

It is easy to lose hope in worldly things, your job, your retirement, your marriage, the economy.. the list goes on, but if you get your hope from God, and put faith in Him, you will not be disappointed.

Earlier in Romans (verse 4) we read "For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope."

We receive Godly hope through endurance and encouragement, which means its built into our character. God builds hope into us, as we successfully endure through trials. We already know that no temptation is to great for us (1 Corinthians 10:13), but sometimes we feel it is. Sometimes we lose hope, we want to quit, we are ready to waive the white flag. It is at this point when God steps in, not to carry us, remember, we can do it, He steps in to encourage us.

This is an important note. If God were to carry us, then it would be God who endured the trial, and He has already done that. This is our turn, He is going to encourage us to keep fighting, keep persevering, and its what we do with that encouragement that matters.

My last post is on mastering our conscious. If we cannot control our thoughts, we will give up hope, and give up on God when we face these difficult trails. When God encourages us to continue with the fight, our conscious is normally the first to speak, coaxing us to fail. Too often we listen to ourselves over God.

Have you ever seen or met a professional athlete, or an Olympic athlete? If you were to ask them about quitting, they would probably admit that in the beginning of their training, it weighed on their mind. However to succeed, they had to overcome that thought, again and again and again and again.

When watching the Olympics, during interviews, theres a unique atmosphere. The athletes are without doubt, they are confident in their expectations. They are going to win, and they are going to win the gold... and even if they dont, they will be back, and they will win it next time.

They are confident in their hope, and often, it lets them down. Only one can win the gold medal. They are the best athletes in the world, but only one can win what they are all trying to achieve.

When you put your hope in God, you will not lose. God encourages you, He motivates you, He gives you the tools to fight. Through the Bible, He has shown you how to fight. You have everything you need, the only thing left is you and your mind.