The Overflow

A Blog About Hope by Julia Sifers

At the end of a traditional church service, they may say a benediction and a common one comes from Romans 15:13 (NIV):

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

I have attended church most of my life and can mouth the words along with the pastor as he raises his hand and sends out his congregation with these parting words. 

Sometimes words that we hear over and over become a bit stale and lose their meaning. I’m embarrassed to say, this verse had fallen in that category… until recently. The last time I heard it the word hope stood out to me. 

First, right off the bat, the word hope is directly connected as a characteristic of God. Not just “yeah He can be pretty hopeful.” but He is the God of hope. That phrasing makes me think of the way, back in ancient times, they would give the elements of nature to a false god. Like, Rah the god of the sun or Thor the God of thunder (even if you’re not a history buff, you’ve heard of him thanks to the Avenger movies!) 

But instead of a made up god, assigned to an element of nature, we’re talking about our God, the one true God, Creator of all things. And in this verse, He is called the God of hope. Which means, it’s His thing. (Though let’s be clear, God doesn’t have just one thing. It’s one of many.) It’s no wonder the next part explains how He will fill us with two very essential elements to holding onto hope: joy and peace. 

I’m not sure entirely which comes first, but I know if you have joy and peace, hope sticks around a lot easier, and when you are overflowing with hope it’s impossible to avoid the joy and peace that surrounds you. There’s another key word aside from joy and peace… trust. And not trust in just anything, trust in Him. 

So we can find hope when we fully trust in God, and that trust comes when HE fills us with joy and peace, and the hope only emerges from the power of the Holy Spirit. 

Let’s look at it like a garden. We want to grow hope. Okay so, the Gardener of Hope sets us up with a steady supply of sunny joy and plenty of rich peace soil, that as we water it with our trust, hope explodes with growth. Now, when you plant a seed in a garden, other than giving it the elements it needs, are you the one growing the seed? Are you causing it to break out of its tiny seed shell and develop into a plant that eventually merges out of the ground? Nope. In the same way, our hope grows from the power of the Holy Spirit. 

He supplies all we need. He’s the God of hope, ready to fill us with the joy and peace required for trust to be strong and grow such epic amounts of hope that we overflow it. 

That overflow changes lives. 

It gives us the bravery to obey. 

It gives us the strength to keep going when it’s hard. 

It allows us to wake up in the morning and do the day. 

Hope is a game-changer. 

And it’s readily available when we lean into the words of that verse, and trust in Him to receive the hope we need!