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How is your hope? Paul wrote to the Romans, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13). Would you say that you are “overflowing with hope”? And what would that look like?
Think about the times in your life when you are really struggling. Your faith is weak, the circumstances seem to get worse, you feel like quitting, you want to run away, things are just not good. What is missing in those times? It’s hope, isn’t it? You’ve lost hope that God is going to come through, or that those difficult people in your life will ever change, or that life will ever get easier. The loss of hope leads eventually to depression and at its extreme, to no longer wanting to live.
Hope is absolutely essential to your life. You cannot make it without hope. And in this passage Paul gives the secret—the pathway—that will give you overflowing hope. Two things: you must trust in the God of hope, and secondly, you must rely on the power of the Holy Spirit. So, if you want to overflow with hope and know the joy and peace that hope brings, you have to be intentional about trusting in God.
Putting your trust in God means that you deliberately choose to believe God loves you, God cares for you, and God has good plans for you. You trust when you cannot see or understand. Hope comes as you decide that you will trust God—and conversely, hope dies when you worry, when you are fearful, when you forget to trust God.
I know it’s easy to say, “Just trust God” and it may seem trite when you’re in the midst of despair. But, dear friends, trust is a choice you and I must make and it’s not once and done. Most of the time it’s a daily choice—sometimes several times a day—when you speak truth to yourself and choose hope. Here’s the good news: if you are born again through faith in Jesus, you have the power to do this because you have the Holy Spirit. So, it’s a matter of turning that power on and choosing hope.