I’ll be honest. Six months ago at training camp when our team was picking our name, although I agreed with “Hope,” I thought it was kind of cheesy and really just a little bit cliche. I loved the idea of what it meant, and it felt even more special since we had a teammate named Hope who had just decided to withdraw from the race and stay home; however, it wasn’t all that special to me at the time.
After six months of this journey, I could not love our team name more. Hope may seem like an overused word in our everyday talk. We say and hear things like “I hope we have empanadas for dinner,” or, “I hope there’s seats on the bus.” This is not wrong to say and I see no problem with it, but hope has such a deeper meaning when you really dig into what hope means.
I always love to look at a few different definitions when I’m trying to learn what a word means, so I’ll state a few below.
http://Dictionary.com says that hope is “The feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best.”
Wikipedia’s describes hope as “an optimistic state of mind that is based on an expectation of positive outcomes with resect to events and circumstances in one’s life or the world at large. As a verb, its definitions include ‘expect with confidence’ and ‘to cherish a desire with anticipation.’”
Hebrews 11:1 says “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation.”
I think that all these definitions of hope have a common theme of feeling or believing the desires will be met. Hope is waiting expectantly and believing that the best can and will happen.
When I started learning what hope really meant for me, I had to wrestle with it for a while.
Yes I believe my God is big.
He can answer big prayers.
Mountain-moving prayers.
But do I believe it enough to pray those big prayers and hope for them to happen – to wait expectantly for God to move? Hebrews 11 goes on to say in verse 3, “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.”
It’s all too often that we’re told not to get our hopes up. But there’s been enough of that!
Ephesians 3:20 says “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us…” To him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think. That is incredible. He can do so much more than we could even dream to ask. Because of this, we have permission to get our hopes up and pray things that we feel like are impossible, because my hope is in the maker of the universe. The MAKER! OF! THE! UNIVERSE!!!
If I have faith to believe that God made the entire universe and faith to believe He made mountains + valleys + the reproductive system + the stars + grasshoppers + mathematics + physics + coffee beans + laughter + all things good, I ought to have faith that He can do things that seem impossible to me.
Six months later I know exactly why our team name is Hope. God fulfills promises to those who hope in Him. I’ve seen women who struggled with fertility for endless years become pregnant, I’ve seen people give their lives to Jesus because of the hope we have gotten to share with them through encouraging words and prayers, I’ve seen people be healed, and I will continue to see these things. But the best part is, this hope isn’t just for me. It’s for everyone. I’m done with settling with how things are; it’s time to have hope and believe that God is going to do a new thing! He is going to heal the sick, reconcile families and marriages, provide every penny. I’ve seen Him move and I know I’ll keep seeing Him move as long as my hope is in Him.
I would love love love to talk more about this with anyone who is interested. I’m passionate about hope and what it means for our future, so if you’re struggling to have hope or if you’ve got the most hope, I want to hear about it. I don’t think anyone should fight their battles alone so if you’re facing a battle, I’d love to join you in placing hope in Jesus and praying big prayers for you. Reach out to me!
