Romans 4:18 (NIV)
Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”
Hope isn’t always logical. In fact, hope rarely depends on the things that our minds can understand. Instead, when we hope, we’re putting our faith and our trust in something that is bigger than we are.
Abraham laid the groundwork for this kind of hope thousands of years before Christ was ever born.
By the time God promised Abraham the son that he had always longed for, the patriarch of the Christian faith was nearing 100 years old. His wife, Sarah, wasn’t much younger than him at 90. They had prayed for a child, but their hope had remained unfulfilled.
All of that changed when God appeared to Abraham and said that he was going to have a son.
Abraham hoped, even when hope didn’t make sense. Sarah, while she eventually got on board with the whole thing, wasn’t so sure. She laughed and mocked the entire concept.
While they both eventually got to enjoy the fulfillment of the promise of God, Abraham’s hope outlived him by thousands of years. Paul, in his letter to the Roman Church, spoke about Abraham’s willingness to “hope against hope.”
Some 2,000 years after Paul wrote this epistle, we continue to look at Abraham as an example of Godly hope.
Godly hope doesn’t only give us something to look forward to while we wait as Abraham did, but it also changes the course of our future. On the surface, Abraham didn’t seem like anything special. Because of his hope, he became one of the founding fathers of the Christian faith.
Your hope has the potential to outlive you. While there are certainly benefits of holding onto hope that you can enjoy, your hope has the power to transcend your lifetime. With that in mind, let’s learn more about what unbreakable hope looks like in the life of the believer.
Don’t Stop Believing
Mark 5:35-36 (NIV)
While Jesus was still speaking, some people came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue leader. “Your daughter is dead,” they said. “Why bother the teacher anymore?” Overhearing what they said, Jesus told him, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”
The fact that Jairus was even willing to come to Jesus with his need is indicative of how hopeless he perceived the situation. As a ruler of the synagogue, Jairus worked closely with the people who tried to trap Jesus with trick questions, and eventually led the charge for Him to be crucified.
However, Jairus had a 12-year-old daughter at home who was so sick she was about to die. At that moment, Jairus wasn’t worried about his career prospects, nor did he care about what the other leaders would say about him. He knew the only chance for his daughter to be saved was a miracle from God.
Everything was going just the way Jairus needed it to until a woman whose name we never get appeared in the story. Suffering from an issue of blood for the same 12 years that Jairus’ daughter had been alive, she was equally as desperate.
When she touched the hem of Jesus’ robe, her bleeding stopped, and she was healed. Unfortunately, during Jesus’ conversation with her, Jairus got the news he had been dreading. His daughter was dead. Hope was lost.
But it wasn’t. Jesus heard the news, but He had already seen the events that were unfolding long before He ran into Jairus that day. That’s why He told Jairus to not be afraid. Instead, He wanted Jairus to continue believing, to continue hoping, just like he had done before.
The same hope that prompted Jairus to come to Jesus was what Jairus needed at that moment.
Based on Jairus’ faith and hope, Jesus went to his house and resurrected his daughter. That’s what hope can do. Even if things look hopeless, don’t stop hoping.
You Are Not Alone
Acts 27:20 (NIV)
When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and the storm continued raging, we finally gave up all hope of being saved.
Peter, the author of this story, had seen storms before. However, there were very few storms in Peter’s past that compared to the hurricane-force winds that they were sailing into.
Peter had been allowed to sail with Paul on a ship filled with prisoners simply because the guards liked Paul. Peter probably regretted the decision to tag along when the storm kicked up in the middle of the sea.
For days, the sun didn’t shine. The men who were trying to steer the ship went nights without being able to see the stars. The sun and the stars were navigational tools, which meant they had no direction.
It’s easy for us to lose hope when we don’t have direction. When you don’t know where you’re going, and you don’t know what’s coming next, how do you keep hoping? By following Paul’s example.
While the owners of the ship and the men who sailed it were throwing cargo overboard, Paul was in the back of the boat praying. While praying, an angel of the Lord came and stood beside Paul, reminding him of God’s promise that Paul would go to Rome and stand before Caesar.
When Paul realized that he wasn’t alone on the ship, but was surrounded by the presence of God, he came forth with a hope that changed the course of the story. He declared the truth about God’s sovereignty over the situation, and everything worked out just the way that God wanted it to.
When dealing with hopeless situations, you are not alone. God’s plans for you are just as established as His plans for Paul.
Our Hope Is Alive
1 Peter 1:3-5 (NIV)
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.
Perhaps Peter thought back to the storm in Acts 27 when he was writing his first epistle. Maybe he considered how hopeless everything seemed when people were throwing cargo into the sea, convinced that death was imminent.
After the storm, it’s much easier to see that you should have held onto hope the whole time. Why?
Because Christ is alive. Our hope is not rooted in a powerless, defeated God. Instead, the same God who we serve has proven victorious over death, the most permanent force that our minds can conceive.
Your hope is alive because the Source of your hope is alive. Today, rest in the fact that you have been reborn into a living hope through the resurrection of Christ. No matter what you’re facing, He is greater. If He can give us hope over death, He can give us hope over everything else.
A Closing Prayer:
Heavenly Father, thank You for the living hope that You have placed inside me. Help me to hold onto that hope when it looks like everything is falling apart. Remind me that the same God who stood beside Paul on the ship stands by me in every storm of life I face. In Christ’s name, Amen.