Real Hope

Where Do I Find Real Hope? 

Where Do I Find Real Hope?
By Rick Warren

“May God, the source of hope, fill you with joy and peace through your faith in him. Then you will overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13 GW).

At the end of World War II, a U.S. submarine came back to dock at Newport News, Va. As it came into port, something terrible happened, and the submarine began to sink. The Coast Guard was immediately dispatched to save the crew, and divers swam down to the submarine. As they approached it, they heard a sailor using a hammer to tap Morse code on the hull. His question: “Is there hope?”

That’s a fundamental question we ask in life: Is there hope?

It’s asked every day by thousands of people in thousands of different ways:

• When someone is sitting in the doctor’s office awaiting test results.
• When a couple get nowhere despite months and months in counseling.
• When talking to an accountant before walking into a bankruptcy court.
• When a family hears their child is missing.

You can go 40 days without food and three days without water. You can go eight minutes without air. But you can’t go a single second without hope. It’s an essential part of life. When hope is gone, life is over.

Because hope is in such short supply in our society today, people fall for all kinds of scams. They trust in false hopes, like psychic hotlines, palm readings, astrology, fake healers, and quack cures. Inevitably, those false hopes disappoint. Nothing disappoints worse than false hope.

So where do I turn to find real hope? The Bible says turn to God.

In Romans 15:13, the Bible says, “May God, the source of hope, fill you with joy and peace through your faith in him. Then you will overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (GW).

God is the only source of hope that’ll never disappoint. When we place our faith in him, he provides joy, peace, and hope that overflows.

You need that kind of hope.

At the end of the book of Ezekiel, God says, “I am Jehovah Shammah.” In Hebrew that means, “I am the God who is always there.” God is always there. He’s in your past, in your present, and in your future. He’s with you in the good places. He’s with you in the evil places.

He is everywhere. And you are never, ever alone. Where God is, hope is.