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Hope seems always to be the least understood of the famous trio of “faith, hope, and love” (I Corinthians 13:13).

What is hope, and what role ought hope to play in the Christian life?

Advent, it turns out, is the perfect season in which to ask about hope.
In everyday parlance, hope is an uncertain aspiration. If we know something good is coming our way, that’s one thing. If we merely hope it’s in our future, that’s quite another.
Christmas presents, for instance. Most kids North America, as in many other places around the world, are sure they are going to get something good for Christmas. Whether they get the particular gift they hope for, however, is far less than certain. Maybe, maybe not. That’s hope.
When the Apostle speaks of faith, hope, and love in I Corinthians 13, he focuses on love as “the greatest” of the three. Love, however, depends on both faith and hope.
Faith in Biblical terms is an attitude of trust, and pre-eminently trust in God. It is the basic posture of the wise human (the fool simply says there is no God). We recognize that God is great and God is good, so it makes sense to commit ourselves to God. Faith is that ongoing decision to depend on God, walk with God, do God’s will, and accept
whatever God sends as ultimately for the best.
Love in Biblical terms is caring for the other, seeking the other’s welfare, whether it be loving God, loving our neighbour, or loving the rest of creation. The divine command to love isn’t the command to summon up warm feelings of affection for strangers or even enemies—as if we could. It is to encounter strangers or even enemies and to try to
bless them however we can.
What, then, about hope?

Hope in Biblical terms is not merely optimism, not merely a sunny disposition that somehow things will work out right. Hope in the Bible is not looking for silver linings in otherwise horrible events, nor is it simply choosing to believe that things will work out when they seem manifestly not to be working out.

The rest of the article can be read HERE.