While it’s true that hope can be crushed, that doesn’t mean hope has disappeared. The human spirit is difficult to oppress because people’s ability to be hopeful is present even in the darkest night of the soul. Hope can be strong with a positive outlook when it’s anchored in the Lord Jesus Christ.
While it’s impossible to pass through life without experiencing some suffering physically or emotionally, hope motivates a person to do what is necessary to heal. When Alexander the Great became sick with a fever in Asia Minor, he trusted his physician to administer the proper medication. Three days later he returned to the battlefield, where Alexander believed in his soldiers who were the best equipped and trained army on earth.
To have hope is to have confidence that God is present with you regardless of what you’re facing at this moment. God wants you to trust in Christ Jesus and have hope and faith that solutions are available for the troubles you’re facing. “Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.”
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Through [our Lord Jesus Christ] we have confidently entered into this new relationship of grace, and here we take our stand, in happy certainty of the glorious things he has for us in the future. This doesn’t mean, of course, that we have only a hope of future joys – we can be full of joy here and now even in our own trials and troubles. These very things will give us patient endurance; this in turn will develop a mature character, and a character of this sort produces a steady hope, a hope that will never disappoint us.
~Romans 5:2-5 Phillips – The New Testament in Modern
English
Eternal life is in [Christ Jesus], and this life gives light to all mankind. His life is the light that shines through the darkness – and the darkness can never extinguish it.
~John 1:4-5 The Living Bible
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