My Dad’s hope inspires me. Dad studied, researched, prayed for, and meditated on the word hope. He knew it was a crucial foundation for life in God. Hope is confidence in the unseen. It believes something will be realized that has not yet come to fruition. This means that you hope and pray when there is no indication or possibility. I love the story of Elijah who prayed seven times. Between each prayer, Elijah rose to see if his prayer for rain had been answered. Elijah kept praying until he saw a cloud the size of a man’s hand rising out of the sea, and then he knew the miracle had come. He knew God had heard his prayer. A cloud the size of a man’s hand is going to bring the rain? I am not sure I would have been so sure.

What do I hope for in my life that has no indication of possibility— nothing logical to point to evidence? The Bible is a handbook of people who believe with hopeful expectation in the seemingly impossible. An old woman giving birth, a virgin conceiving, a man born blind given sight, a leprous man made whole, a man raised from the dead. Faith is our firm belief right now in God. Hope is the knowledge that what we do not have right now will be fulfilled. We have faith that God raises from the dead, and we have hope that the dead will be raised. I am thankful for all the lessons Dad taught me about hope. The greatest example was his ability to say thank you even during cancer and difficulty. Dad could rejoice always because of his faith in God and his hope that God could use even cancer for good.

“For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, in perseverance we wait eagerly for it.” – Romans 8:24-25

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