Hope Never Fails

Anticipation is a strong emotion. It brings together feelings of excitement and joy when it is a positive expectation, or feelings of worry and doubt when it is negative. An anticipated event could be the return of a loved one, a celebrated holiday, a final exam, or a medical procedure. I’ve included events of both the positive and negative variety. Humans are inherently forward-thinking, and our ability to anticipate helps us to prepare for what lies ahead. 

Anticipation is running strong in our household. May is a month full of holidays, year-end parties,  the return of loved ones, sports awards, and the cusp of summer break. May is also a month full of SOLs and final exams. As a parent, I find myself anticipating the life events of my children more than my own. Did we spend enough time preparing for the science test? Could I have done more? When is this school year going to end? If you anticipate something to be easy and it’s hard, that can be humbling. But when you anticipate something to be hard, and it’s easy, that’s encouraging. The multifaceted angles of anticipation! 

Life is a rollercoaster of anticipation. It’s a natural emotion and one we need. We need future events and the anticipation they invoke to keep us calibrated in the present. The tension is essential to human existence. But anticipation must be grounded in hope. When we make one for one, we miss the significance of both. 

Hope and anticipation are similar, but they are not the same. Both are future-oriented, but anticipation is future expectation, while hope is future assurance. Biblical hope that is! Assurance and expectation are two different ways to look at the future.  

Consider these words and how they define hope: 

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead 4and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you. 1 Peter 1:3-4

There is expectation in these verses, but not in the sense of wishful thinking. This living hope is the confident assurance that God will do what He says based on what He has already done! Our hope has come to us through the resurrection! Our anticipation is grounded in the assurance of what God has done. 

Maybe the month of May is a rollercoaster of anticipation for you? Anticipation is a good and godly emotion. But as a Jesus follower, my anticipation must be viewed through the lens of hope. When the events of life either support or fail to meet my expectations, it doesn’t undermine hope. Hope is the confident assurance that comes from a promise-keeping God. He has fulfilled His greatest promise in Christ. 

Here’s to an anticipatory May! God is good! Yes, because of what He will do, but even more for what He has already done!