A Prayer for Hope
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
Romans 15:13 (ESV)
Paul doesn't instruct the Romans to manufacture hope. He prays that God would fill them with it. Hope in the New Testament isn't optimism; it's a confident expectation rooted in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
A Prayer for Hope
God of hope. I love that Paul calls You that. Not the God who dispenses hope occasionally, but the God who is hope's very source. Thank You for the resurrection. Thank You that my hope isn't built on optimism or on circumstances improving, it's built on the fact that Jesus walked out of the grave. That's not something that can be taken back. Thank You that hope, in Your economy, is a confident expectation, not a fragile wish. I need to be reminded of that today. Hope has felt thin lately. The future has started to feel heavy rather than open, and I've been waiting long enough that I've begun to wonder whether what I'm waiting for is real. Paul wrote this prayer for people living in real tension, with very good reasons to be cynical. And he prayed that they would abound in hope. Not just survive on a trickle of it. Abound. So I'm asking for that today. Not just enough hope to get through the week, but the kind that overflows, the kind that comes not from my circumstances improving, but from the Holy Spirit working at a level deeper than my circumstances can reach. Fill me up, Lord. You are the source, and You are not running dry. In Jesus' name. Amen.
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