I’d like a cup of hope, please.

Wouldn’t that be a nice way to jumpstart your day? Is hope something I can stir up when feeling discouraged? Where can I find it?

The NIV Study Bible describes hope as “unshakable confidence concerning the future”, “not a mere wish.” NIV notes on Romans 5:5 explain, “The believer’s hope is not to be equated with unfounded optimism. On the contrary, it is the blessed assurance of our future destiny and is based on God’s love, which is revealed to us by the Holy Spirit and objectively demonstrated to us in the death of Christ.”

The Scriptures below answer where hope can be found and teach what or whom to put our hope in: God, His Word, and His love.

• “Why are you downcast [depressed], O my soul? Why so disturbed [with grumbling and complaining] within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God” (Psalm 42:5).
• “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Romans 15:4).
• “But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love” (Psalm 33:18).

In other verses, hope and waiting or hope and faith go hand in hand:

• “But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently” (Romans 8:25).
• “[W]e wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).
• “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1).

When needing a helping of hope, may we look to the One who is our hope, the hope that does not disappoint. (Romans 5:5)