i HOPE i make this putt

Like in golf, people often use the word HOPE to really mean "wish". "i hope it doesn't rain today", "i hope i get this or that for Christmas", and so on. This has been a pet peeve of mine for a long time but I just got home from golf with the guys and I was reminded how much we misuse the word. When a bud said "i hope the opponents are struggling today," I reminded him that we had no assurance that they were messing up so you really have no hope, just a wish.

I then took the opportunity to explain that we make the real notion of hope meaningless because we have chronic misuse of it in our culture.




You may be saying to yourself by now, "what's the big deal?" Well, one reason the Christian faith is irrelevant to the faithless in our world is because the HOPE that is promised doesn't have meaning beyond that of a wish. Its not a very exciting proposition to simply wish God is on our side, or just wish His promises are true or wish He would bless us.

The word HOPE means an assurance or confidence something is. So when we HOPE something is true or going to happen, the probability is 100% that it is or will. The original Webster dictionary says "hope always gives joy whereas wish or desire may produce or be accompanied by pain or anxiety."  Thus when God in His word says your HOPE is in Him, He means you can depend on Him, not just wish He comes through.

I love Abraham's perspective when God said he would be a father of many generations. He was very old and had no heir. Abraham claimed he "in HOPE, without HOPE, believed." In other words Abraham believed the assurance of God's promise even when there was no confidence in what he saw or understood about his ability to father a nation.

When we have 100% assurance we will make the putt, we can say "i HOPE i make that putt." Until then we need to stay with "wish" so that we don't embed in our mind the HOPE we receive from God is only likely. Our joy and freedom depends on how we make sense of HOPE.