Hope deferred makes the heart sick (Proverbs 13:12), soooooo it’s better to just not hope then, right? If you aren’t hoping in anything, you won’t ever be let down. Kind of along the same lines as ‘if you don’t try, you won’t fail.’ I’m sad to say it, but that’s how I felt about that verse for quite some time. I felt as though everything I had ever hoped and dreamed about had completely shattered, with no, well, hope of them even partially resurrecting.

So, I gave up on my hopes. I gave up on my dreams. I gave up on my goals. If I didn’t have any, then I couldn’t possibly be disappointed. That’s what that verse meant, right? I wore that verse as a badge on my heart. I felt it entitled me to not have hope and to not be responsible in any way for my hopes (or their failure). In fact, hopes were probably designed for failure, and that was why my heart was so sick. I started despising the mere word hope. Well, I couldn’t be more wrong. The second part of that verse goes on to say, ‘but a desire fulfilled is the tree of life.’ I’m not here to tell you about how all my dreams and desires have been fulfilled, because they haven’t. But, I sure have learned an awful lot more about hope.

So now faith, hope, and love abide, but the greatest of these is love. So hope, is at least second or third in the list of important things (1 Corinthians 13:13). But never mind that, apparently I knew more about the Bible and hope isn’t important whatsoever *insert eye roll*. And then, if we jump back a little in the text, we find that love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (1 Corinthians 13:7). What was that? Hopes all things? I thought hope wasn’t important. So to summarize, love fuels hope, and then hope directs faith, and then faith fulfills it. For faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1). Hope is a crucial part of the equation.

I wholeheartedly agree with Christa Black Gifford in her statement, “If our hearts are not anchored to the goodness of God when tragedy strikes, we lower our theology to match our pain.” I had done just that when I gave up on my hopes and dreams. I clutched onto a scripture, took it out of context and refused to consult what the rest of the Word said regarding hope, and used that scripture justify my incorrect theology. I had lowered my theology to meet my self-inflicted pain of abandoning my hopes and dreams. Instead, I needed to be anchored in the goodness of God.

God very much loves your hopes and dreams. He even gives you hopes and dreams. Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart (Psalm 37:4). Notice, there are two different ways give can be interpreted in this verse. Our part to play is the first part of the verse: take delight in the Lord, spending time in His Word, praying, and spending time in the quiet with Him (be still and know that I am God – Psalm 46:10). Then, God gives you the desires of your heart. He plants the desires, hopes, and dreams in your heart. God is the source of your hope. Hope is not a bad thing to have. It’s not a disappointing thing to have. God wants to give you hopes and dreams to get you pointed in the right direction. Not all of them may come to fruition, but God will continue to give you new hopes and dreams to replace the ones that grow old or the ones that were possibly misheard or misunderstood. I’ve come to call these “stepping stone” hopes. Hopes that God gives you to get you to the next hope He has lined up for you. Then, God gives you the desires of your heart. He fulfills the hopes he has lined up for you. And, if that is a hope not to be fulfilled, he has a new hope waiting on your doorstep. Hopes get you pointed in the right direction for where you need to have faith. The hopes God plants in your heart point you toward your purpose.

God knows what will give you the most fulfillment in life, more so than you do. But God has to start you with hope – with vision. Where there is no vision, people cast off restraint (Proverbs 29:18). If God doesn’t have you set in a direction, with hope, there’s no restraint, no focus. No keeping you on track. No blueprints to follow. Hope is our blueprint for our spiritual life and our physical life. And those blueprints direct the construction and work of our faith. (More to come on how faith and hope interact in my next post.) But until then, I’m praying for you, that if you have given up on hopes like I had, I pray that you will start to wake those dreams and hopes again in your heart. I pray that God will show you hopes forgotten and that He will resurrect them in your heart. Hope gives us reason for life, in this life and in the eternal life to come.

In Him – Just a girl pursuing her reflection in the mirror