Category: Hope

Sharing Hope And Courage


Luke 1:36-45 New International Version

36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. 37 For no word from God will ever fail.”

38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.

Mary Visits Elizabeth

39 At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, 40 where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42 In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! 43 But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. 45 Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!”

Luke 1:56 New International Version

56 Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home.

Hope For The Future – Liberating Letters


Romans 8:18-30 NIV

Present Suffering and Future Glory

18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 

20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that[a] the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. 

24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.

28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who[b] have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 

30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

The Hope You Need – By Charles Swindoll


The Hope You Need by Charles R. Swindoll

Hebrews 6:19 Somewhere along the many miles of southern California shoreline walked a young, 20-year-old woman with a terminal disease in her body and a revolver in her hand. She had called me late one evening. We talked for a long time.

A troubled young woman, her mind was filled with doubts. She had advanced leukemia. The doctors told her she would not live much longer. She checked herself out of a hospital because, as she put it, she “couldn’t take another day of that terrible isolation.

“Her husband had left her. Her two-month-old daughter had recently died. Her best friend had been killed in an auto accident. Her life was broken. She’d run out of hope.

She and I spoke calmly and quietly about what was happening. I did a lot of listening. There were periods when there was silence on the phone for thirty to forty-five seconds. I didn’t know where she was. I still don’t know her full name.

She spoke of taking her husband’s revolver and going out on the beach to finish it all. She asked me a lot of questions about suicide. In what seemed an inappropriate moment . . . I felt peace, a total absence of panic. I had no fear that she would hang up and take her life.

I simply spoke very, very quietly about her future. I made no special promise that she would immediately be healed. I knew that she might not live much longer, as her doctors were talking to her in terms of a very few weeks—perhaps days.

I spoke to her about Christ and the hope He could provide. After a sigh and with an ache that was obvious, she hung up. Thirty minutes later my phone rang again. It was the same young woman.

She had a friend who was a nurse, who used to come to our church. The nurse had given her a New Testament in which she had written my name and phone number and had said, “If you really are in deep need, I think he will understand.”

By the way, the nurse—her closest friend—was the one who had been killed in the auto accident. She had nothing to cling to from that friendship but memories and this Testament. She read from it.I said, “What does that little Book say to you?”

“Well, I think the first part of it is biography and the last part is a group of letters that explain how to do what’s in that biography.” (That’s a good analysis of the New Testament.) I said, “Have you done that?” And she had called back to say, “Yes, I’ve done that.

I decided, Chuck, that I would, without reservation, give myself to Jesus Christ. I’m still afraid; I still have doubts. I still don’t know what tomorrow’s going to bring, but I want you to know that I have turned my life over to Jesus, and I’m trusting Him through this. He has given me new hope . . . the one thing I really needed.

“It’s very possible that someone reading these words right now feels the very same way. You’re thinking thoughts that you have never entertained before, and you’re thinking them more often and more seriously.

Without trying to use any of the clichés on you, I would say that this hope Christ can bring is the only way through. I have no answer other than Jesus Christ. I can’t promise you healing, nor can I predict that your world will come back right side up.

But I can promise you He will receive you as you come in faith to Him. And He will bring back the hope you need so desperately. The good news is this:

That hope will not only get you through this particular trial, it will ultimately take you into God’s presence when you die because you have received the gift of eternal life through faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ your Lord.

Improbable Hope – The Source Of Justice


Genesis 21:8-20 NIV

Hagar and Ishmael Sent Away

The child grew and was weaned, and on the day Isaac was weaned Abraham held a great feast. But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking, 10 and she said to Abraham, “Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.”

11 The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son. 12 But God said to him, “Do not be so distressed about the boy and your slave woman. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring[a] will be reckoned. 13 I will make the son of the slave into a nation also, because he is your offspring.”

14 Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy. She went on her way and wandered in the Desert of Beersheba.

15 When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes. 16 Then she went off and sat down about a bowshot away, for she thought, “I cannot watch the boy die.” And as she sat there, she[b] began to sob.

17 God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. 18 Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”

19 Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.

20 God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the desert and became an archer.