What is hope?

Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.  Helen Keller

Hope is a wish or a confidence. It is also an expectation for something that we consider possible. 

"But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." Romans 8:25

"You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in your word." Psalm 119:114 

I remember being a little kid and hoping that my mother would buy me a scooter for Christmas. There was nothing  I wanted more, and I asked every year because I hoped and expected, most desperately, that she would finally understand that I truly, deeply wanted and needed that scooter more than anything else in the world. I just had to have it.

Instead of the scooter, I got paint-by-numbers and new underwear, dolls and doll clothes, other wooden toys made by my uncle, tangerines in my stockings, and lots of really silly things that I didn't want. Not that I wasn't thankful, because I was. But I was also terribly disappointed. I never understood why she would not buy me that scooter and my hope was dashed, year after year, until I finally gave up asking or just outgrew the need to have one. But I never forgot how much I wanted that scooter and when I finally in my 50s got an electric bike that had a scooter mechanism, I celebrated loudly that God had finally heard my prayer and sent me a scooter. I danced around my driveway and made a big fuss as my poor husband stood there and stared at me. He had no idea what had just happened.

Hope is that wish we make and hold onto for what we want and the expectation for something we believe is possible even if we don't see it. It is the confidence in us that says, yes, it is possible and if we wait for it with patience, it will come.

Faith is believing that it will happen. For me, sometimes, faith is a knowing that I feel deep in my soul and I know that what I have asked God for will happen. There is no doubt in my heart. 

Here's an example. When I was in my 20s, I wrote a book and sent off a sample to Doubleday with a letter asking them to publish it. I was a nobody. Doubleday was a big publishing house, one of the biggest and best at that time. My chances, my friends told me, were slim to none that Doubleday would even read my letter or the outline of the book I sent them.

I refused to believe that it wasn't possible. I believed that they would buy my book and no matter what anyone said, I didn't give up believing. About two weeks after I sent in the book, I started getting this knowing sense in my spirit. I can't explain it except that I knew that Doubleday would buy the book. I knew it as well as I knew the back of my hand, so I told my boss that I'd soon be quitting my job, I bought an electric typewriter from a friend so I'd be ready to write it, and I waited to get the letter. 

Four weeks later, the letter came and, yes, Doubleday wanted to buy my book.

I had hope, I had waited, I had expected and I had received what I asked for. My hope, when put into action with faith, had produced fruit. I can't tell you how life-changing that was for me.

That doesn't mean that I always know that my prayers will be answered. Sometimes I just hope and believe and wait to see what God will do. But there are times when I do know and when I do, I know I can bank on it. God always comes through.

Now mind you, we don't get everything we ask for, only that which is within God's will. Christianity is not a magic wand and Jesus is not there to give us everything we ask for. He sifts through our prayers and sends us what is best for us, and sometimes what we pray for is His best for us. It is surely worth the effort to hope and to wait expectantly for the things we ask God to do. King David always prayed and waited expectantly which meant he was on the lookout for his answer to prayer. So should we.