1 Corinthians 13:13, Hebrews 6:19, Romans 5:5

Josiah Parr considers the power and strength of hope

Josiah Parr

I hope it doesn't rain tomorrow...

I hope that I get the grades I need to get into university...

I hope you know what you are doing...

I wonder what hope looks like?

Hope seems like the type of emotion more suited to some sort of hippy faith, after all you can't touch it, you can't measure it, its all a bit ethereal. Right?

In biblical terms, hope is so much more than that. It's the confident assurance, it does not disappoint (Romans 5:5), it's the thing that will last forever - 1 Corinthians 13:13 Three things will last forever - faith, hope and love - and the greatest of these is love.

Hope is like an anchor - Hebrews 6:19 'We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure'.

'When the world says, "Give up",
Hope whispers, "Try it one more time".'
~Author Unknown

'Where hope would otherwise become hopelessness, it becomes faith.' ~Robert Brault.

Today hasn't been a great day for me. I woke up to a thunderstorm, yet slept through my alarm. I missed my first appointment and received a cryptic message from one of my colleagues to which I assumed I had done something wrong. It all seems like its going pear shaped.

During all of this, I had a hair appointment. It was inconvenient and with everything that had happened I didn't have time to cancel it, so had to go.

I sat down in the hairdressers chair and all I wanted to do is switch off and not talk about anything. "Cut my hair so I can go back to work" was what I was thinking, if I am completely honest. Somehow I managed a, "How are you today?" and a perfectly polite conversation followed. We spoke about the weather and how much my hair had grown and then as I settled in for silence my hairdresser drops a bombshell and tells me about her partner leaving her and her daughter, only a couple weeks ago.

All I could think was, "Oh No!! I don't want to have this conversation, especially today of all days".

She began to speak very openly about how things had gone wrong. She told me that she had talked to her partner about a previous conversation about love languages that we had spoken about several hair cuts before and that she didn't know where to turn.

At this point I recognised the opportunity to speak hope into the conversation. I told her of her value and worth and about a course held at my work which helped people find out who they are and why they were important. She was so overwhelmed she asked if her daughter could possibly do it as well.

It's amazing how even after a day when everything had gone completely down hill, even when I was unwilling to be an ambassador for God, hope had other plans. God had other plans.

Hope is much more than a feeling, because it breaks through no matter what type of day you have. Hope is measurable because I could see the hope that I was able to leave, even after a small conversation. Hope is strong. It's an anchor. No matter what storms life throws at you, if your hope is in God, that anchor holds you in a place of security, a place of strength.