My WORD for 2022 was hope. I was inspired to learn more about this word after reading this talk. I became particularly interested in how it related to my word for 2021: faith. I was so intrigued by how often we see those words paired together throughout scripture—faith and hope, hope and faith. Yet how are they connected? And how do they differ?
Also, I wanted to be intentionally full of hope throughout this year.
Throughout the year, I came to realize that there are two ways to hope. We can hope for short term things: improved health, a pay increase, a good grade, progress on a set goal, etc. And while there is an important place for that sort of hope, the type of hope that gives us greatest dividends is hope in Christ. When we place our hope in Him, we may not see the temporary results we seek—now or ever. But hope in Christ means that we maintain trust in Him that our desired outcome is not as great as His perfect plan. We cannot even fathom the glory He has prepared for us!
Hope in Christ requires wholehearted reliance on the Atonement. We are imperfect and we will always be imperfect. But that is nothing to be discouraged about because we have hope in Christ. We have hope that the Atonement of Christ takes care of all of our inadequacies. Without Him, we are fatally flawed and hopeless. But with Him, through Him, and because of Him, we can be so much more than we deserve. We can be new creature (see 2 Corinthians 5:17).
We can have hope in an eternal glory far beyond anything we earned on our own. That is the hope so often linked to faith. It’s the next logical step. First we have faith in Him. We believe that He exists and that He was born on this earth and that He lived a perfect life and that He atoned for our sins in Gethsemane and that He died on the cross and was resurrected. We need that faith. Leaning into that faith is hope. When we go beyond believing in Him and we believe Him, wholeheartedly, then we hope. We have hope in Christ.
And yet, there is still a place for the day-to-day hopes. I have hope that I will heal from this inconvenient stress fracture in my left shin. I have hope that in April, I will run that 10k with my brother and sister. I have hope that when I finish revising the current draft of my middle grade novel, someone will want to publish it. I have hope that those people for whom I pray will have their needs met. And that hope still require faith, right? I seek to align my will with His as I ask for these favors and blessings.
All hope requires faith.
All hope is brave.
When we hope, we are not surrendering. We are not retreating. We are figuratively forcing ourselves into a spiritual trust-fall. It requires a whole lot of energy. I do not enjoy falling. I do not even enjoy seeing someone else fall. Those countdown videos of “hilarious” falls? No thanks. I cringe EVERY time I see someone fall! It takes everything I have to willingly let go and trust that the parachute is going to work. Figuratively, because I have no intention of skydiving literally–not my idea of a good time. But I know that when I let go of my own inhibitions and I put my trust in the Lord, He will make an outcome far greater than any I could imagine on my own. Every time.
This year, hope has helped me to improve my health. It has helped me to workshop the first pages of my novel’s umpteenth draft and push to keep working on it, even through extreme resistance. Hope helped me to keep trying at things even when I felt discouraged. And honestly, I think that I am usually pretty good at facing the “big” things in life with courage. Emily Watt gave a great talk about courage a few years ago and she pointed out that the opposite of courage is discouragement. And though I am pretty good at being courageous with those things that I have deemed “big” in my life, I struggle with those smaller discouragements. Those little things really wear me down! And that is where hope comes in. Hope is what we do with the courage we can muster. By funneling that courageous energy into hope, we can endure all of the “big” and “small” discouragements life brings.
I am so thankful for the chance I’ve had to learn more about hope and I feel like I’ve added a really handy new tool to my tool belt. I hope that I can remember the importance of hope moving forward, even when it is not my WORD (See what I did there?).
I know that being intentionally HOPEful this year has brought more joy to my life. I hope that you will find greater joy as you expand your hope as well.
What was your word for 2022? Feel free to share your word and tell us what you learned about it! And get ready—next we’re going to talk about our 2023 words!
