Get Your Hopes Up!: Expect Something Good to Happen to You Every Day (13 page)

1 Corinthians 13:7 says that “love… is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening].” What a wonderful Scripture—love always believes the best about people and never gives up hope. Wouldn’t that be a great way to live?
Ever ready to believe the best of every person
and
having a hope that is fadeless under all circumstances
? Well, that’s the kind of joy-filled, hopeful life God wants you to live.

If you’ve failed to believe the best about one or more of the people in your life, it’s hurting you more than it’s hurting them. Today can be the day you say good-bye to a cynical attitude and hello to hope. Here are a few practical ways you can do that.

• Ask God to show you something good about that person, and then take the time to look closer than ever before. You already know what you don’t like; discover something you do like.

• Instead of “finding faults,” try “finding favorites.” Find a favorite thing about that person—something you may have overlooked in the past. Instead of looking at their problems, see their potential.

• Many times we assume the worst about a person.
That person is going to disappoint me, they hurt me on purpose, I know they will eventually leave me
. But instead of assuming the worst, hope always assumes the best. That person may have messed up in the past, but it’s possible she’s learned from her mistakes. Assume she is going to bless and impress you and then give her the chance to do so.

• There is a big difference between the way God sees people and the way we see people. For example, when the crowds came to Jesus, the disciples saw them as a chore, but Jesus saw them with compassion. Ask the Lord to open your eyes to see His people the way He sees them—with eyes of love, understanding, and compassion.

• This takes some practice, but it’s a fun exercise. Start hoping for the good things in a person rather than hating the annoying things about him. Verbalize hope language. Try saying
things like: “I hope this works out,” “I hope you’re right,” and “I’m hopeful about this relationship,” instead of “I hate making new friends,” “I hate dealing with that person,” or “I hate when they say that.”

These are some good steps to get you started, but it’s not an all-inclusive list. If you really want to know how to be full of hope, believing the best about others and about the circumstances of your life, study the example of Jesus. Read the Gospels and watch how Jesus ministered, healed, encouraged, taught, and loved. Jesus didn’t just want the best for people; He saw the best in them too. What a great example to follow. Aren’t you glad that Jesus saw the best in you? He saw something worth saving! You and I can make a decision to do that same thing for other people. Let’s begin today!

There is a joy that comes with looking and believing for the best. It’s like being a gold miner who believes he’s about to strike it rich. When you approach the people and the circumstances in your life with a hopeful attitude, you’re bound to find something good.

Don’t let the frustrations of the day steal your joy. Be positive enough to smile right through daily inconveniences. And if you’re dealing with something bigger than an inconvenience, remember that God promises to work all things out for good. So go ahead and get your hopes up. Good things are going to happen today… and tomorrow… and the day after that. All you have to do is look for them.

A story is told involving a school system in a large city that had a special program designed to help students keep up with their assignments during lengthy stays in the city’s hospitals. One day a teacher who was working in the program received a routine call, asking her to take a homework assignment to a particular child. She briefly spoke with the child’s teacher and took down the boy’s name and room number. “We’re studying nouns and adverbs in his class now,” the regular teacher explained. “I’d be grateful if you could help him understand these concepts so he doesn’t fall too far behind.”

The teacher assigned to the hospital program went to see the boy later that evening. However, when giving the assignment, no one thought to mention to her how badly the boy was burned or the amount of pain he was dealing with. Upset at the sight of the hurting student, the teacher awkwardly stammered, “I’ve been sent by
your school to help you with nouns and adverbs.” When she left the hospital that night, she felt like she had accomplished very little.

But the next day, when she returned to the hospital, a nurse ran up to her and asked, “What did you do to that boy?” Feeling she must have done something wrong, the teacher began to apologize. “No, no,” said the enthusiastic nurse. “You don’t know what I mean. We’ve been worried about that little boy, but ever since yesterday, his whole attitude has changed. He’s fighting back and responding to treatment. It’s as though he’s decided to live.”

Two weeks later, the boy explained what happened. Before the teacher assigned to the hospital arrived, he had completely given up hope. But everything changed when she showed up in his hospital room. He came to a simple realization, and he explained it this way, “They wouldn’t send a teacher to work on nouns and adverbs with a dying boy, would they?”
¹

The power of hope is amazing. Stuck in a hospital room, surrounded by sickness, discouragement, and bad news, the boy was ready to give up. But just one teacher with a helpful demeanor and a homework assignment brought enough hope to turn the boy’s outlook on life around and give him a reason to keep going. If one person could bring that much hope, imagine what would happen if you surrounded yourself with people like that on a regular basis. What could five people, or 10 people, or 20 people like that do?

Think of what that might look like in your life. The truth is: You are going to be influenced and deeply affected by what is around you. If you fill your life with people, events, and activities that foster hope, then you’re going to be filled with hope and optimism. But if you fill your life with hopeless people and choose to partake in activities that are discouraging and negative, you’re going to be frustrated and miserable on a regular basis. It’s all a matter of what you choose to surround yourself with every day.

This doesn’t mean that we can avoid all negativity in life. Some
of what we find ourselves surrounded with is not necessarily by choice, but we can make the best choices possible.

Zechariah 9:12 uses an interesting phrase when it refers to our relationship with hope. In this verse of Scripture, God refers to His people as “prisoners of hope.” He says, “Return to the stronghold [of security and prosperity], you
prisoners of hope
…” (emphasis added).

I like this description—“prisoners of hope.” Think about it. If you’re a prisoner of hope, you have no choice about it: You can’t be negative, you can’t be a worrier, you can’t be hopeless. When times are tough, and when you’re dealing with disappointment, the hope that surrounds you will cause you to rise up in faith. Everything around you is telling you God can make a way, and when that happens, something stirs in your spirit. You are emboldened to believe and declare, “Good things are happening to me and through me!”

My first title choice for this book was “Prisoners of Hope,” but we were concerned that people might not understand it without explanation, so we decided on
Get Your Hopes Up!
I love the thought of being so hopeful that it is like being imprisoned in it. Are you ready to live your life locked in a prison of hope?

God wants us to be locked up in hope, trusting that He can change what needs to be changed. Our hope is in God! He can do anything! No matter what we feel like or how things look, we believe that God is working and that we will see positive change at just the right time. That’s why hope is determined and doesn’t give up. When you come to the end of your rope—when your strength falters and fails—the story isn’t over. There is no limit to God’s strength. His strength is inexhaustible. If you will be steadfast in your hope, you can’t lose… because God can’t lose. Since God is for you, the victory is sure.

God called me into the ministry many years ago, but I have to be honest with you and say that success didn’t happen overnight. There was a lot of hard work involved, and there were many nights when I wondered if I heard God correctly. People weren’t always receptive to me, and there were a lot of meetings where I wondered if anyone would show up at all. Dave and I walked through years and years of preparation and trusting God to build up what is now a worldwide ministry. During those years, I was tempted to quit many times. But my testimony is: I’m still here! Even when I had questions and doubts, even when I didn’t think I had the strength to go on, I knew that God could make a way when there seemed to be no way. Dave and I put our hope in Him, and He exceeded our wildest expectations.

If you make the decision to be a prisoner of hope—to live surrounded by the happy anticipation that God is going to do something good—the same thing can happen for you. Whatever goal or dream God has placed in your heart, you’re going to see it come to pass. It might not happen when you thought it would happen, and it might not happen the way you thought it would happen, but God is going to work in such a way as to exceed your wildest expectations too. You won’t have to make it happen in your strength. All you have to do is persevere—just don’t give up. Surround yourself with hope and watch God bless you in ways you never thought possible.

I believe that God has many pleasant surprises waiting for you, things He has prepared that are waiting for you. Keep your hopes up!

When a prisoner walks into his cell, he can’t bring any contraband with him. No outside or unapproved items are allowed in his environment. Those things are considered dangerous and are therefore not allowed.

Well, you’re a different kind of prisoner—you’re a prisoner of hope. You’re not surrounded by bricks and iron; God wants to surround you with His goodness, with His grace, with His hope. No matter where you turn, no matter where you look, you can experience joy, peace, confidence, and the blessings of God. This is the life Jesus died to give you.

But it’s important to understand that there are some things you can’t bring with you when you enter the environment of hope because they’re dangerous. If you’re going to be surrounded by hope, here’s a list of contraband you have the opportunity to leave behind:

The life of the believer isn’t meant to be oppressed by these burdens of the enemy. You don’t have to live depressed and without hope. With God’s help, you can get rid of every discouraging, self-centered,
negative lie from the enemy and live in an environment of hope. You can build your life on the truth of God’s Word rather than the lies of the enemy.

A Scripture I quote often is 1 Peter 5:7. It says:

We are to “cast” our care. That word means to pitch or throw! Isn’t that a great picture? We don’t just take off our cares and set them in a chair beside us where we can pick them up again later; we cast them completely away. We throw them as far as we can, never to be picked up again. We cast them on God and He takes care of us!

Reject the lies that say
Nobody likes me. Nobody’s going to want to eat lunch with me. I’ll never shake this illness. I won’t get the promotion at work. I’ll probably never get married
. Don’t surround yourself with those hopeless thoughts. Cast each care on God the moment you sense its presence, and things in your life will begin to blossom. The anxiety and the worry that used to weigh you down suddenly have no power over you anymore. Now you can experience what Jesus calls “relief and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet” for your soul (see Matthew 11:29).

I have mentioned that if we live in the garden of hope, something is always blooming. There are usually lots of different kinds of flowers planted in a garden, and something is teeming with new life all the
time. Just about the time one type is finished blossoming, another type begins to blossom. The owners of this garden are never without flowers in their lives. We have three varieties of bushes at our home with different flowers on them. One blooms in early spring, another in late spring, and another in early summer. We have flowers all the time!

I have realized that I won’t enjoy the flowers, no matter how many there are, if I don’t take time to look at them. Likewise, we need to take time to look at the good things that are happening around us on a regular basis. The media reports everything bad that is happening in the world, but there are good things all around us if we purposely look for them.

At times we get so busy dealing with our problems that we don’t take time to search for the good in life. I think it is important for us to do what each crisis demands during times of adversity and to take time to see the good in life. We might say that the good is the counterbalance for the difficulty. It is like adding salt or spices to bland food. Somehow, we find greater strength to deal with our challenges in life when we take time to see what is blooming each day in our garden of hope.

I decided to take a few minutes away from writing and see what is blooming in my garden today. I found that I feel really good, I remembered that I slept great last night, the sun is shining, I have already talked to three of my four children and it is only 10:30 a.m., and my husband hugged me this morning. However, one of my grandchildren is going through a difficult time, a good friend has cancer, I have a lot of work to do this week, and my phone is broken. Nothing that comes under the category of “problem” is more than we can handle joyfully if we always take time to look at what is blooming in our garden of hope.

Maybe you have not noticed it, but I feel certain something is blooming in your life. I encourage you to take time to look for it.