We talk about hope in everyday conversation. We say “I hope you feel better soon”, or “We hope to go abroad this year” or “I hope the weather will be better in a day or so”. We mean there is something in the future we should very much like to happen, and we feel cautiously optimistic that it will. Life without hope would be very grim. Even in the worst of circumstances, people look on the bright side. A poet wrote: “Hope springs eternal in the human breast.” Hope can give men extraordinary tenacity of spirit. Miners trapped by a roof fall, or sailors drifting on a raft, will often fight death for days, convinced that their friends will come to the rescue before it is too late.
Sadly, of course, they are sometimes disappointed. It can happen that the rock fall is too deep to tunnel through, or no one knows the ship has foundered. In this case the chance to which they cling does not exist, and their hope is an illusion.
Hope with a Foundation
Hope is a topic that crops up frequently in the Bible. …