Confident in What We Hope For
What do you hope for?
Verse of the Day
Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
Today’s Devotional
I remember having to memorize this verse in either 5th or 6th grade Sunday school. I can almost guarantee that I did not really understand it then. As I read it again today, I must admit that I still have some questions. I just finished reading several commentaries and two other blog posts about this exact verse, yet I still struggle with what this verse means. So let’s just wrestle with it.
Certain words tend to jump out at me at different times, and today that word is “confidence”. But before we dive into our confidence, let’s talk about what it is that we hope for. If faith is being confident in what we hope for, what are we hoping for?
I can’t answer that question for you, but I can tell you what I hope for. I hope that God is God and I am not and neither are you. (Sidebar: I am VERY confident that I am not God.) I hope that God loves me enough to provide His Son as a sacrifice for my sin, thus paving the way for my relationship with God to be reconciled, or made right. I hope that the power of God is active in my daily life through the Holy Spirit. I hope that as I grow in my relationship with God, I will slowly be transformed into the version of me that God created me to be. I hope that as I grow and mature spiritually, my faith will be evident in how I think, feel, speak, and treat others.
I’m sure there are more things I could add to that list. But let’s go back to confidence and apply it to my list. I am confident that God is God and I am not. I am confident that God loves me enough to provide His Son as a sacrifice for my sin, thus paving the way for my relationship with God to be reconciled. I am confident that the power of God is active in my daily life through the Holy Spirit. I am confident that as I grow in my relationship with God, I am slowly being transformed. I am confident that as I grow and mature spiritually, my faith will be evident in how I think, feel, speak, and treat others.
Why am I confident in those things? Because even though I cannot see them with my physical eyes, I KNOW them to be true because that is my experience. I have experienced the power of God, thus making me confident that He is God. I am confident that the sacrifice of Jesus has reconciled my relationship with God. If that weren’t true, why would God answer my prayers and help me all the time? I have experienced asking the Spirit for help with something and an idea just comes out of nowhere. It happens all the time. I have experienced my own transformation, slow as it may be. I can look back at my journals from the past and see how God is changing me. I have experienced a change in the way I think and feel as I have continually prayed about something. I can’t speak to how I treat others, but I know that people frustrate me a lot less now.
My conclusion is that we can become confident in the hopes of our faith as we experience them and give God the credit that is due Him. We may not be able to see the evidence, but that does not make it any less true.
Journal Prompts
Answer only the questions that seem relevant to you today.
What is on your “hope” list?
How confident are you in each item on your list?
What unseen evidence do you have that supports your confidence?
No pressure, but…these lists might just define our faith.