The Power of Hope

Advent Devotional Week 1–HOPE

By Tamira Johnson

Romans 15:13 CEV

I pray that God, who gives hope, will bless you with complete happiness and peace because of your faith. And may the power of the Holy Spirit fill you with hope.

Hebrews 10:23 TPT

So now wrap your heart tightly around the hope that lives within us, knowing that God always keeps his promises! 

 Hebrews 11:1 TPT

Now faith brings our hopes into reality and becomes the foundation needed to acquire the things we long for. It is all the evidence required to prove what is still unseen. 

Psalms 130:5-6

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.

The Power of Hope

By Tamira Johnson

It’s only been in recent months that I’ve begun to understand what hope really is, and the effect it can have on our faith.  

I remember one particular evening at a Greenhouse class earlier this fall, while studying the book Spiritual Intelligence by Kris Vallotton, that we learned about hope being what we feel and faith being what we see.  Vallotton wrote “The gravity of all the laws of the Spirit rests on faith, yet you cannot have faith without first experiencing hope.  Hope feels; it doesn’t see.  It is the earnest expectation that something good is about to happen.  Hope does not know what’s going to happen; it just knows something will.  Once hope creates expectation, faith beings to “look” for the thing hope is feeling.”* 

This distinction opened up my eyes to how little ‘expectation’ I had in my life.  Some of us may not even know what our desires are…or perhaps, have buried them as we’ve lost hope in them over time. This was where I had found myself.  I didn’t realize how much, over time, I had given up my hopes in the grind of doing what I thought was the right or dutiful thing.  In carrying so many different responsibilities, I didn’t see that I was letting go of expecting great things for myself in lieu of doing good things for others.  I mean, many of us have dreams, desires, wishes, and hopes, but to have hope is different.  

Vallotton goes on to say that “Solomon wrote, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but desire fulfilled is a tree of life” (Proverbs 13:12).  It is not deferring what we hoped for that makes our hearts sick; it is deferring our hope that makes us sick.  When we stop hoping, we get sick.”^ Wow!  How much credit do we give to the power of hope? To the power of expectation? To have hope is to have something to look froward to! To be excited about! To anticipate!  And that is life-giving.  

I love the imagery from the verses in the Psalms above, of the watchman on the wall.  How he’s waiting for the Lord as one waits for the dawn. Like a watchman on the wall who is expecting something new and something beautiful to break forth from the darkness of night!  And when he sees the dawn…when he sees the beautiful rays of sun and the colors, the light illuminating the earth before him, it’s like a world of clarity and revelation are in front of him.  That everything God promised is there before him, because he anticipated and believed it. 

It’s my desire that this understanding of hope would awaken us to greater expectations in Christ.  And that we’d remember that not only is he a God of hope, but also, he is a Giver of hope. 

Reflect:

Is there any area of my life where I have stopped expecting God to do good things? Is there any area or situation in my life where I want to experience more expectation, more anticipation of what God is able to do on my behalf?

Let’s Pray:

Father, thank you that you are a God of hope and a Giver of hope.  I ask that you would fill our hearts again, and in greater ways, with anticipatory expectations and delight in the truth that you do fulfill your promises.  Help us to look for the dawn!  Help us to remember the significance of your son’s birth this Advent season, and how He came to be the hope of the world.  We love you, and we thank you for your love. Amen.

*Spiritual Intelligence, K. Vallotton, pg. 138

^Spiritual Intelligence, K. Vallotton, pg. 139