Four Steps to Growing Hope
A Blog About Finding Hope by Joyce Perez
It’s hard nowadays to find someone who isn’t hoping for something. Hope is simply defined as wanting something to happen, the desire for the expectation that we have, to be fulfilled. So, we can most certainly say we ALL hope for something or we have some kind of hope within us.
Hope gets us moving out of bed every morning! It gives us an aim, even if not altogether defined, to which we move forward with our lives. Sadly, the adversities we encounter and our inability to control all circumstances can contribute to hopelessness and the lack of hope can be detrimental to our lives.
Hope deferred makes the heart sick. Proverbs 13:12 NIV
I had a known relationship with hopelessness. For years, I have hoped for physical healing. It has indeed made my heart sick for a long time. I struggled with God’s love for me that appeared non-evident because of the healing that never took place. Through these years, I’d say I had spikes of hope that were found unmet, and I’d fall back into the known hopelessness where I dwelt.
It took divine intervention for me to start to hope again. Something did change though. I don’t hope for the same thing. Even though I’d love to receive the physical healing, I hope now for God’s purpose in my life to be fulfilled using the physical impairments He has allowed upon me. This experience had me hoping for God’s “higher thoughts about me.”
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:8-9 NIV
I’ve learned this: hopelessness has one goal in life, which is to make you believe you cannot control anything in your life. This is not true!!! We certainly can’t control a lot of things in life because simply put, we are not God. But God Himself gave us control of ourselves. In 2 Timothy 1:7 we read, “for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control (ESV). We can choose to take control of ourselves - our body, mind and spirit - and seek for hope!
Hopelessness wants you inactive, but action is the very thing you need to increase hope within you!
Where can we find hope when we are drowning in hopelessness? I want to give you a few things that can help you find hope and fill your heart with it.
1. Look for stories of people who found hope in hardship. I can say from experience how much this act of finding role models and listening to their stories has increased my faith. I filled up my heart as much as I could with testimonies of people who both got what they were praying for or were in the waiting process. Through their stories, I could see the hand of God at work. It filled me with hope to see the people who were still praying for their miracle but shared how God never stopped working in their lives and what He was accomplishing in their lives during that time.
This is one of the main reasons I love the She Speaks Stories podcast. It’s a channel for listening to so many people who just like everybody else had tumultuous lives and the most unexpected circumstances, yet they were met by a gracious God who makes beauty out of ashes (Isaiah 61:3).
2. Turn to God. Read this next verse slowly as it is God’s heart for us:
‘For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.’ Jeremiah 29:11 NIV
This is really great news! His plans for us involve giving us a desire with expectations of a future fulfilled! Listen to God’s call to you:
Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth.
For I am God, and there is no other. Isaiah 45:22 ESV
Turning to God in prayer relieves the pressure of believing we are alone. No! We are not! He is our ever-present help! Even if people have abandoned you, the Lord holds you close (Psalm 27:10). Knowing that the Creator of the world is in control, and you don’t have to be, and putting your trust in that knowledge builds up a lot of hope within.
3. Extend kindness to others. I have often heard that when you’re going through something difficult, go find people in worse shape than you and help them! Having done that myself, I can say that it is a powerful tool. Helping other people and blessing someone’s life is both a gift to the person and a gift to you as you will shift your mind from your problems to the present and experience more peace and less stress. Find a friend whom you can serve or there are several non-profit institutions around you looking for volunteers.
Those who are gracious to the poor lend to the Lord, and the
Lord will fully repay them. Proverbs 19:17 CEB
4. Allow people to help you. When we feel hopeless, we tend to withdraw from people and isolate ourselves, but that doesn’t offer any positive results.
“Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out
against all sound judgment.”. Proverbs 18:1 ESV
I love this quote from Brené Brown on this subject: “When you judge yourself for needing help, you judge those you are helping. When you attach value to giving help, you attach value to needing help. The danger of tying your self-worth to being a helper is feeling shame when you have to ask for help. Offering help is courageous and compassionate, but so is asking for help.” (Brené Brown, Rising Strong: The Reckoning. The Rumble. The Revolution.)
Let other people into your life and let them bring hope into your situation.
Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs it down,
but a good word cheers it up. Proverbs 12:25 HCSB
Hopelessness is scary and you may feel trapped by it, but you don’t have to stay in it. Even if all you can do today is curl into a ball and say Jesus, help me; you will be one step closer to a hope filled life!