Never Lose Hope

A number of years ago, researchers preformed an experiment to study the effect hope has on those undergoing hardship. Two sets of lab rats were placed in separate tubs of water. The researchers left one set in the water and found that within an hour they had all drowned. The other rats were periodically lifted out of the water and then returned. When that happened, the second set of rats swam for over twenty-four hours. Why? Not because they were given a rest but because they suddenly had hope! Those animals were conditioned to believe that if they could stay afloat just a little longer, someone would reach down and rescue them.

One of the most tragic ways to describe a person is to say, “They are hopeless.”

We can’t make it without hope. Paul spoke of Abraham and Sarah’s plight, he states that Abraham, “Against hope believed in hope” (Romans 4:18). When the situation looked impossible from every human perspective, Abraham had hope because he had confidence in God. This caused him to live as one who had hope. Abraham would have found it impossible to have hope apart from his faith in God. His was not the hope of an animal driven by instinct. Nor was it just the hope of a man simply gifted with intellect. It was the unique hope that only a child of God can possess by the grace of divine inspiration, the hope that comes from the foot of the cross and the throne room of glory. The writer of Hebrews declared; “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:15-16NKJV

Hope is an attitude, an expectant outlook on life. It is a gift God has granted to all. No one can take it from us. When and if we lose hope, it is because we have given it away and tell ourselves we will not believe or hope anymore. Consider a man in one of the most hopeless situations imaginable – Dr. Victor Frankl. He was one of the many Austrian Jews sent to a Nazi Concentration camp near Prague during World War II. For the next few years, he suffered indescribable indignities, humiliations, and sufferings at the hands of the Nazis in four different death camps, including the infamous Auschwitz. After regaining his freedom, Dr. Frankl described his ordeal. The Germans had taken all his possessions, including his watch and wedding ring; they had shaved his head and stripped the clothing from his body. He had nothing on his person he could claim as his own. They stripped him of everything they thought might give him hope. However, that was not the whole story. As Dr. Frankl stood before his captors, he realized there was one thing they could not take from him – His attitude. Although at that moment the Nazi’s held his future in their hands, he still has the power to choose how he would face it. Hope or hopelessness – the choice was his. As a Jew, he had faith that Jehovah would save His chosen people, spiritually, if in no other way. But that knowledge alone was not enough to help him survive a Nazi death camp. He survived because he never lost hope in his heart that God would spare him physically the way he wanted to be spared.

Hope anchors our soul! Hope is our comfort! When the answers don’t come when we feel they should, its hope that keeps our head above water and causes us to keep believing.

Faith is an “unquestioning belief that does not require proof or evidence.”  

But Hope is “a feeling that what is wanted will happen; desire accompanied by expectation.”

Faith is the belief God can perform the miracle. Hope is the feeling that says God will do the miraculous for us. Faith is what we know about God. Hope is what we feel about God. Faith is a condition of our mind. Hope is a condition of our heart.

Hope is not contingent on circumstance.

Having lost 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen (thousand), seven sons, three daughters and all his servants in one day, Job confessed his inability to find God: "Look, I go forward, but He is not there, And backward, but I cannot perceive Him; When He works on the left hand, I cannot behold Him; When He turns to the right hand, I cannot see Him. (Job 23:8-9 NKJV)

Bankrupted of his possessions, bereaved by the death of all his children, covered with boils, Job was left with little save the misguided counsel of his world-weary wife. She suggested that he simply curse God and die, but Job had bigger plans. Why? Job lost everything but his hope.

He could not find God but he knew God had not lost him!

Job said; “But He knows the way that I take; When He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.” (Job 23:10 NKJV) And the reason why Job trusted God:  My foot has held fast to His steps; I have kept His way and not turned aside. I have not departed from the commandment of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food.

(Job 23:11-12 NKJV)

Job knew the law of the harvest and that what one sows he reaps and his hope was in the fact that he knew he had sown right seeds. This is the only reason I can find why Job would not curse God and die. He knew how he had walked, how he had kelp the commandments of God, how he had treasured the Word of God. His life firmly fixed on God’s forever-settled Word; Job could see beyond the veil of time’s tears and confidently declare, “For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh (body) shall I see God:” (Job 19:25-26 KJV)

He knows God is coming back some day and he would see God then but Job declares in hope that he would also see the end of his trouble and the hand of God in his body.

His commitment to truth – without conditions – guarded him, while God guided him to an end that was more blessed than his beginning.

God does not want to give us a formula. God wants to give us focus. Faith is how we come to God, but faith does not produce the miracle, God produces the miracle. Faith says I believe, but it is hope that screams, “God if You will, You can touch that part that is hard to believe”.

Hope says when we get there God will already be there working there. The Almighty goes before us. How will it happen, how can we handle this, when will we be able? Question after question rush through our mind, but hope screams out, “God has already been there!” When I get there, when we arrive at that set time of our life, He will have already begun putting the pieces in their right place.

God declares:

Yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; Your walls are continually before Me. (Isaiah 49:16 NKJV)

Don’t ever lose Hope, God is working ahead of you.