1 August

Hope is one of the three great theological virtues – the others being love and faith. As Raniero Cantalamessa writes, ‘They are like three sisters. Two of them are grown and the other is a small child. They go forward together hand in hand with the child hope in the middle. Looking at them it would seem that the bigger ones are pulling the child, but it is the other way around; it is the little girl who is pulling the two bigger ones. It is hope that pulls faith and love. Without hope everything would stop

The origin of hope is ‘the God of hope’. The reason for hope is Jesus. The source of hope in you is the Holy Spirit. This hope is not wishful thinking. It is rooted in what God has done for us and is doing in us.

This hope is the driving force for our day-to-day living. As Erwin McManus comments, hope ‘lifts us out of the rubble of our failures, our pain and our fear to rise above what at one point seemed insurmountable. Our ability to endure, to persevere, to overcome is fuelled by this one seemingly innocuous ingredient called hope.’

This hope leads to ‘All joy and peace as you trust in him’ (v.13). I love the way that Corrie Ten Boon puts it: ‘Joy and peace mean going around with a smile on our faces and an empty suitcase.’

Now our hope is in the return of Jesus. As Bishop Lesslie Newbigin put it, ‘The horizon for the Christian is “He shall come again” and “we look for the coming of the Lord.” It can be tomorrow or any time, but that’s the horizon. That horizon is for me fundamental, and that’s what makes it possible to be hopeful and therefore to find life meaningful.’