God of Hope

I've had a lot of wishes in my life. I have wished for better jobs, for good friends, for healing, for financial assistance, for peace. I have wished my cares away...and sometimes, it has worked. But more often than not, I end up lying around wondering how much harder I have to wish for things to change before they will. 

My hope, however, is firm. 

A lot of folks think that wishing is the same as hoping, or at least a close enough equivalent that the difference doesn't really matter. They used the words interchangeably - I hope it doesn't rain today; I wish the price would go down; I hope the results are good; I wish they'd just call already. 

But let me tell you this: there is a huge difference between hoping and wishing. And that's probably why as much as I sit around wishing, things never really change the way I dream for them to. 

In short, hoping is believing and wishing is wanting. 

To truly hope, you have to have more than a wish. You have to have trust in something, an expectation, a firm belief in the power of something not only to change things, but to be good enough to change things. You have to believe a promise made by something (or Someone) worth hoping in. 

You can want all day for your life to change, but until you believe it really can, it never will. 

That's the difference between wishing and hoping. 

Thankfully for us, we have God. We have a God of promises who has been true to His Word from the formless and void. We have a God who has done what He said He would do and still has a few things He's working on. We have a God who is trustworthy and dependable, powerful, and good. We have a God who not only can change our lives, but will...if only we believe in Him. 

The Psalmist says it very well - My soul waits quietly for the True God alone because I hope only in Him. (Psalm 62:5)

In other words, I want a lot of things in this world and I could spend a lot of my time wishing, and I probably do, but at the end of the day, my soul waits in stillness for God because that's the only real place I have more than a wish; that's the only place I have hope. 

Are you wishing today? Is there something heavy on your heart that you're longing to see happen in your life, for you or for someone you love? 

How would it change things if your wish became a hope?