Clarity in hope

The Extraordinary Women's Conference was earlier this year. I wanted to go, there were several speakers coming that I wanted to hear but I had no money for a ticket; the desire to go was a fleeting thought at best. Then, I received a phone call from a friend telling me that if I wanted to go with her someone was willing to buy my ticket. I wasn't sure why and I didn't know who, but I was sure God was up to something.

Hope is a word that started popping up earlier this year. I viewed hope as "I hope I get..." in other words hope for me described something I wanted just didn't think I'd get. Let's not get our hopes up was my thought. Hope was everywhere, random conversations, tv shows, and then...my friend and I walked into the room for the conference and hanging on the back of the stage was a huge banner that read EVERLASTING HOPE. I laughed out loud; I started praying a long time ago for God to be out loud and outrageous when talking to me so I would know it was Him...He was speaking, loud and clear.

I began to pay close attention in the weeks to follow, trying to figure out what God was saying to me. Why was "hope" such an important lesson for me to learn? As the year ends this is the clarity I've gathered thus far about HOPE:

As a Christian we have confident expectation (a definition given at the conference) in the God we serve. The bible says to approach the throne boldly (Hebrews 4:16) and it also tells us that God wants to bless us (Genesis 1). I discovered that when I would pray about something for someone else I was filled with confident expectation, but when I prayed about myself I was hesitant, almost doubtful. I also discovered that if much time passed and I didn't clearly "see" God working I was quick to want to give up, assuming He didn't want to answer that particular prayer (even though I would challenge someone else for thinking that way about themselves). In essence, I wasn't believing for myself what I was believing for others.

Hope for me this year has been about learning to apply that same confident expectation to myself, at all times; this is a journey that I will be on for awhile, but I'm so thankful God loves me enough to shout that He wants me to have His version of HOPE. May we ALL have confident expectation when we talk with our Father.