How hopeful are you feeling lately? Can you say with confidence you are tending to hope in your life? Do you know hope as the confident expectation that comes from Christ (1 Pet. 3:15)? His hope strengthens the heart, brings gladness and peace, does not disappoint, and is an anchor to the soul (Ps. 31:24, Prov. 10:28, Rom. 5:5, 15:13). However, having hope is not automatic; this gift comes from the grace of God and needs to be stewarded. The way you respond to the hope of Christ can make a immense difference in your wellbeing.

Making Mistakes That Can Lead To Hopelessness

Even though you can’t generate your own hope in Christ without His grace, you might be pushing hope away. In fact, you’re actually increasing hopelessness if you’re:

• Giving much of your attention to negative thoughts about your circumstances and feelings.
• Allowing your moods and decisions to follow the up and down extremes of your emotions.
• Forgetting to dream about eternity and kingdom-building.
• Accumulating a large collection of expectations about the way things should be.
• Regularly viewing media that leaves you feeling irritated or discouraged.
• Caving in to the pressure to be complacent, lethargic, and withdrawn.
• Worrying or complaining in place of praying.
• Remaining stuck in old, non-productive habits.
• Escaping from difficulty and suffering, when it would be better to face them head on.
• Choosing self-sufficiency and your opinions over surrender to God and His initially uncomfortable commands.
• Questioning God not to better understand, but out of lacking trust and submission to His good purposes for hardship.
• Failing to schedule daily times for renewal through the Word, prayer, and worship.
• Neglecting your health.
• Distrusting, disliking, and judging yourself and/or others.
• Maintaining an undersized community of godly people and shortage of life-giving activities.
• Communicating with yourself and others in a style that breeds pessimism.
• Abusing freedom in Christ by living more like a renegade than as belonging to a collective.

How to Cultivate and Keep Your Hope

You really can see a dramatic improvement in experiencing the hope of Christ if you respond with intention:

Prioritize Hope

• Confess regularly the ways you’ve placed your hope in the things which fail to deliver and sustain you. (Ps. 33:17)
• Rather than giving into immediate and short-term pleasures, practice calm self-denial by His strength. (Ps. 16:9)
• Give thanks to God always; even when your circumstances are hard. (Phil. 4:6)
• Express hard and painful emotions directly to God for His comfort. (Ps. 42:5)
• Think about the works of God and remind yourself how He tends to operate. (Ps. 78:7; Rom. 8:20)
• Nurture having a relationship with the person of God who is the very source of hope. (Jer. 17:7)
• Be relentless in expecting to find Him at work and to be growing in understanding of his ways. (Acts 17:27; Eph. 1:18)
• Choose to believe when you feel like you have no reason to believe. (Rom. 4:18, 8:25)
• Keep hope as your foundation when you move through your daily tasks. (1 Cor. 9:10)
• Develop your spiritual gifts and discover your personal calling. (Rom. 12:4-6)
• Connect your sufferings to Christ’s so that you share in consolation. (2 Cor. 1:7)
• Praise God that hope is made possible by Him. (Job 6:11)
• Grow in love for the Spirit of Jesus working richly and gloriously inside of your heart. (Col. 1:27)
• When you receive hope, passionately hold onto it. (Heb. 3:6, 6:11)

Study Hope

• Prioritize letting the Word of God instruct you, change you, and sustain you. (Ps. 119:49)
• Invest in the companions of hope: the Lord Himself, His glory, His mercy, His redemption, His promises, and His full assurance to the end (Ps. 130:7, Acts 26:6, Heb. 6:18).  
• Stick with your “Divine hope team” (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) so that you abound in hope. (Rom. 15:13)

Share Hope

• Do life with other people who cultivate and maintain hope. (Eph. 4:4)
• Fight for hope by confiding in a friend or your team when it starts to slip away from you; allow them to remind you to gather it again.
• Verbally promote hope on a frequent basis, even if you don’t feel like it. (2 Cor. 3:12, Heb. 10:23)
• Find others who feel hopeless and don’t leave their side until they share in your hope. (1 Pet. 3:15)