I love adventure, don’t you? Some time ago, I wrote a series of posts on my website titled “Adventure Awaits,” the theme for a big trip my husband Ron and I had planned. How exciting it was for us to venture 32 days across the Northwest US, traveling 11-states, 7323 miles, hauling our cute little travel trailer – just the perfect size for the two of us.
Our adventure took us over 10,000 ft. mountain passes, sometimes our truck and trailer slowly climbing miles up steep grades along hot, winding highways cut into the sides of mountains, with cliffs dropping beside us thousands of feet. Mountain goats climbed rocky cliffs nearby. Trails led us to bears nibbling huckleberry bushes, and to elk munching pasture grass. Along the side roads, buffalo clipped the pavement beside side us, close enough to touch. Coastline roads took us to bobs of barking seals in colonies on small islands; large walruses, like granite rocks lay amongst them. Geysers ejected turbulent steaming waters and Fumaroles emitted gaseous vapors just a few feet in front of us. Green ferns the size of men and Redwoods towering like skyscrapers demanded our attention and created an awe in our inmost spirits, which will not soon be forgotten. The heat poured out of the atmosphere like an open oven door in the July western climate, and wildfires trailed us as we turned from our southernmost point and headed northeast throughout the last days of our travel.
The dictionary defines “adventure” as an “exciting undertaking,” and that it was indeed! It was amazing and we loved every minute.
I had prepared for our July “Adventure Awaits” trip for months, diligently planning our route and reserving campsites, booking boat trips and National Park entrance passes, preparing meals ahead, and finally, packing the trailer. The preparation and anticipation were nearly as exciting as the trip itself.
I fondly remember preparing for our “Adventure Awaits” and the many blog postings I wrote on my website, as we travelled. Now I write of – and speak of – another – a different – season. “Advent Awaits” is our present theme. Like the preparation for our big trip, the advent season is normally an exciting time of preparation, too, filled with joy! Preparing for the upcoming Christmas is blessed: Buying gifts for those we love. Decorating the house and tree. Contemplating the manger scene, we recognize why Jesus came to Earth. We hear and sing carols, such as “O Holy Night, O Little Town of Bethlehem, and Silent Night.” I listen to a recording of my mother’s favorite, “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.” We cherish memories of joyous Christmases past, and we remember the sad ones, as well. Most of us have sad memories of some Christmases past. Brokenness of the past tries to stifle us. Those memories try to rob us of the joy of preparation. The memories could suffocate me if I allowed them to. I look no further than my neighbor to see a grieving family this year. I know the feeling. I’ve been there, and a pit within me still holds pieces of that agony. My heart breaks for our broken world. However, “Advent Awaits,” and this season reminds us of the Hope we have in Jesus.
Just as “adventure” is the “exciting undertaking,” “advent” is looking for “the arrival of something notable; the coming into place; viewing what’s coming.”
Advent is a four-week season in the Church calendar dedicated to anticipating the arrival, or “advent,” the coming, of Jesus of Nazareth, the long-awaited Messiah and King.
The four candles of Advent represent the four Sundays of Advent, and they respectively symbolize hope, peace, joy, and love.
Advent invites us to prepare our hearts, broken or not, no matter our present circumstances – for Bethlehem. For Jesus. Advent opens the door – unveils the opportunity to look to Bethlehem. Because of Jesus. Advent provides a sense of hope.
So, this Advent season, I encourage you to join me in looking ahead. There, in the manger, lies the Hope of the world – the Savior.
The Advent season invites us to Hope. It gives us the Hope of a bright future. It offers the Hope of healing. And it’s all because of Bethlehem. So let’s prepare our hearts! And with joy, I’ll celebrate the Advent! Join me because “Advent Awaits!”
In our churches, many of us celebrated the first Sunday of Advent – the theme of hope.
The world hopes as a “wish.” Fingers crossed!
“I hope my grandson wins the wresting match” means I don’t know if he will or not, but that is my desire.”
“I hope Coke is on sale this week” means that would be a good thing, but it might not be on sale.
I hope I will get the job . . .
But the believer of Christ Jesus needs not limit hope to a “wish.” The Christian is given a much greater “hope.”
† Hope is confident expectation.
Hope is a beautiful word in the Bible. In the New Testament, hope is the Greek word elpsis, which means “favorable and confident expectation; happy anticipation of good.”
Biblical hope not only desires something good for the future — it expects it to happen
The believer hopes differently than the world hopes. Biblical hope overcomes all “wishing” It overcomes all fear. As bleak as your circumstances appear to be, the confident assurance God gives us is that it’s not over yet!
In the Bible, hope is the confident expectation of what God has promised and its strength is in His faithfulness. The Bible tells us that whatever happens, we rejoice in hope, and hope does not disappoint us. Why? Because God loves us. He has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us – when we trust in Jesus. (Romans 5:5) We can have true hope when we rightly believe how dearly God loves us!
We read more about hope in Ephesians 1:15. In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul writes to the believers in Ephesus, giving thanks for them. He says I remember “you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you . . . “
Know the hope! We can know the hope as we read the Word. That’s what I want. I want to know that hope. A long time ago, I began praying it for myself – then for my family – and now for you, ladies. I want you to know and understand that hope. Friends, we do not need to “hope” as the world hopes. Instead, when we follow Jesus Christ as Savior, we have the hope that is a confident expectation! Not only is hope a confident expectation, but . . .
† Hope is a promise
In the Old Testament, we read of a time God’s chosen people were in exile – in a foreign land. They didn’t know how to live in this new place. They weren’t sure how long they were going to be there. Their lives were on hold. They wanted to go back to their homeland. Jeremiah came to them and promised that God had good plans for them. Plans to prosper them and not to harm them. Plans to bring them back and to restore them. Plans to give them a future and hope. (Jeremiah 29:11-14)
Has there been a time you have felt like you were in “exile”? Out of place. Life on hold. Lost. Wanting things to return to normal – to go back to the way they were. Thinking you had no future. No hope.
Probably. Life is like that.
In the Bible, we read that the prophet Jeremiah told the people, “this is what the Lord says: “I know the plans I have for you — plans for your well-being, not for disaster, plans to give you a future and a hope. You will call to me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart. I will be found by you and I will restore you.”
Jeremiah told the people to move forward. They had a future and they had hope.
I have found that in these times of a “holding” pattern, as difficult as it might be on my own, I need to move forward. And I can’t do it on my own. I can only do so because I have hope. Hope in God’s Word. Hope in His promises. God always brings hope to our troubled souls.
Hope. If I told you my stories, I would tell you about my hope. So many times, I was hopeful, wishing that things would change. But as I grew in the Lord, letting the Scriptures teach me endurance, and letting the Scriptures encourage me, my limited understanding of the word hope increased. I began to learn that I could truly “hope” with confident expectation in the Word of God. If God promised it, I could trust in it. We learn to hope and to trust as we read and understand the Bible: Romans 15: 4 explains why we do this: “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” If I could encourage you in just one thing today, it would be to read and study the Scriptures – the Bible. It is God’s Word and it is powerful!
Our Lord Himself, spoke the Word to the enemy. When Jesus first began His ministry here on earth, he was baptized by John – then went into the desert wilderness for 40 days. The devil spoke to Him – like he speaks to us – in lies. You know – lies like “You are worthless. Your mother had cancer, so you will have cancer. No one loves you. You’ll never another good job.”
We need to respond to those lies as Jesus responded: “it is written . . .” Jesus told the devil what was written in the Word. The devil flees from the Word of God. The Word brings HOPE!
“We put our hope in the LORD,” we read in the Psalms.
“. . . for our hope is in you alone.” Psalm 33:20-22
As for me, I will always have hope; I will praise you more and more. Psalm 71:14
That’s where my hope is – in God alone.
Speak God’s Word with me: “I will always have hope.”
In the morning, Lord, I lay my requests before you, and I wait in expectation. Psalm 5:3
He loves you. He listens. He wants to give you the desires of your heart. He wants you to speak to Him and He give you hope – expectation!
Yes, Hope is a promise. And it comes with a future.
We must imbed these truths in our minds in order to move forward in confident expectation.
I’ve written about Hope – in fact, an entire chapter – in When Life Roars, Jesus Whispers. This excerpt speaks of just one of the many times God brought us Hope:
“God was renewing us through hope. We were fixing our eyes on what we could not see. As I read the Bible, I saw things that I had never before seen while reading the same words many times throughout my life. Was this the “Spirit of wisdom and revelation,” for which I had prayed, so that I could “know him better”? Was it God highlighting the words I needed to see at this time? I believed it was. What a loving God I had, who would give me this wisdom and revelation so that I could “know Him better” and “know the hope to which He had called” me!
It was a difficult time for our family. The enemy, the devil, told us lies. Even the world sometimes agreed, but we believed the Word.
Yes, hope is a promise, and we discovered that promise fulfilled in our lives!
My Father has always been faithful to me. He weeps with me. And because I am made righteous in Him, He accepts me without condemnation. I don’t have to work for it. I don’t have to feel guilt that I’m not good enough. I rest in the knowledge that He loves me, favors me, and wants to bless me. He gives me hope.
That hope is confident expectation – it is a promise and it is an anchor for my soul, keeping me from drifting.
† Hope is an anchor
When you testify in court, you take an oath – to tell the truth – “so help me, God.”
“Now when people take an oath, they call on someone greater than themselves to hold them to it. And without any question that oath is binding. God also bound himself with an oath, so that those who received the promise could be perfectly sure that he would never change his mind. So God has given both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence and be encouraged as we hold to the hope that lies before us. This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls.” (Hebrews 6:16-19)
The anchor was an early Christian symbol – a symbol of hope in the ancient world. According to well-known Bible teacher, Warren Wiersbe, at least 66 pictures of anchors appear in the catacombs under Rome, indicating its popularity as a Christian symbol of Jesus Christ. Just think of the hope the early church had found in Jesus Christ!
The Bible tells us that when Jesus ascended into heaven, He took our “hope” of future reward (glorification, inheritance, and full salvation) with Him into God’s presence. (Hebrews 6:20) Our anchor rests firmly in this “inner sanctuary” called the Holy of Holies.
Hope forms an anchor for the whole of life. The person with living hope has a steady anchor in all he or she does. In the same way that Jesus Christ has planted that “hope” firmly in heaven, “hope” serves us here on Earth as an “anchor” for our storm-tossed souls.
Consider the purpose of an anchor. Hebrews 2:1 tells us we must “pay careful attention to what we have heard so that we do not drift away.” This anchor of hope keeps us from drifting away.
† Hope is confident expectation.
† Hope is a promise.
† Hope is an Anchor.
As I said at the beginning, Biblical hope overcomes all “wishing” It overcomes all fear. As bleak as your circumstances appear to be, the confident assurance God gives us is that it’s not over yet!
The Lord’s plan for you is Hope and a Future!
Just as our Lord Jesus came to us in the dark of night 2,000 years ago to be our Savior, so He’s with you right now in these troubling times as your Wonderful Counselor and Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6 NLT). Whatever you’re going through today, may His joy and peace overwhelm your heart and give you abounding hope (Romans 15:13).
Celebrate the Advent and the Hope it brings.
