Dare to Hope, Even into the New Year. What’s the Secret to Keeping Hope Alive?

Hope can be agonizing.

Proverbs 13:12 says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.”

We live in a heart sick culture.

The messages that barrage us can be discouraging to anyone holding onto hope.

It’s particularly prevalent this time of year when people consider New Year’s resolutions.

“Why bother?” Someone will say. “We won’t last past January.”

“It’s all a scam,” will say another. “People don’t change.”

And it’s true. Change is hard. Many people make the same resolution year after year and don’t see lasting success.

For example, I’ve always struggled with my weight. There’ve been times when I’ve lost a lot and reached a healthy weight. Still, I haven’t had many New Year’s when I wasn’t creating health-related goals for the months ahead.

I have other recurring struggles. Financial. Relational. Spiritual.

But, I’ve also seen successes.

It had been a goal since childhood to publish a book but that didn’t happen until I was fifty-three. This past November, I submitted the manuscript of my sixth to the publisher.

In my youth, I spent hours a week alone with my Bible, praying, and listening to God but then in my twenties and thirties, that quiet time felt elusive. By my forties, though, I couldn’t imagine a day without that time.

And after reading Practicing the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence in college, I’ve spent years mindful of Jesus more hours of the day than not.

We all wrestle with hope individually, but we also wrestle corporately.

I’ve seen that this fall as Dr. Saundra and I spoke with interviewers about our book on strategies and hope for ethnic healing.

People are not apathetic, nor are they simply weary of the topic. Rather, as a culture, we lack hope that we can make progress.

In the sixties and seventies, we were all about hope for change. We believed racism would die before the millennium. When we found it still cropping up, still wreaking havoc, still hurting us all, we grew heartsick.

But, maybe we placed too much hope in the wrong directions. Maybe we sought solutions from places our hope had no business resting.

Giving up on hope can appear to be the remedy to what ails us.

It can appear mature, sophisticated, and savvy to warn others off even attempting the work. To hope can make us look gullible, immature, or naïve.

And yet, what’s the alternative?

Should I just yield to my body’s natural proclivity toward holding onto every calorie and spend the next decades of my life growing increasingly larger?

Should we, as a people, simple accept that we’ll never do any better than we’re doing now with getting along?

Of course, not.

Here’s the secret about hope. Hope is foolish and naïve if it’s misplaced, but powerful and effective when directed to the right source.

If we believe that New Year’s is a magic starting place or that one day there’ll be a planner that cures all our bad habits or that someone else somewhere will somehow show us the way to love one another no matter what our skin color, then yes, abandon that hope. It’s misdirected and will disappoint every time.

But, don’t stop there. Instead, place your hope in the only One worthy of the audacity and agony of holding out hope—Jesus.

Psalm 33:16-18 esv says, “The king is not saved by his great army; a warrior is not delivered by his great strength. The war horse is a false hope for salvation, and by its great might it cannot rescue. Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love.”

1 Peter 1:3 esv says “he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

Hope placed in Jesus Christ does not disappoint.

There are times when we wait. There are times when we work. There are times when we face setbacks, warfare, and challenges that test us. But He is faithful.

It doesn’t mean we get everything we want. If that were true, I’d be a size 8 right now.

But what’s also true is that we shouldn’t aid and abet the enemy of our souls by tapping out on God. His people will live in hope.

We will do the work of loving people who don’t look like us. We will continue to try even if everyone around us abandons the work.

This doesn’t make us naïve or gullible or fools. On the contrary, the Bible identifies the fools as those who give in to scoffing, mocking, and sloth.

God warned us that in the last days, scoffers will come. They’ll try to make anyone who hopes in God feel foolish. The air will be filled with discouraging messages, like the wicked witch skywriting over The Emerald City, “Surrender, Dorothy.”

But, we will not surrender our hope to anyone but Jesus.

When we choose to hope, a hope invested in Jesus, and when we aim to try again at what the scoffers laugh and say is impossible, it’s time to remember.

Remember these words from Acts 13:41 esv, “Look, you scoffers, be astounded and perish; for I am doing a work in your days, a work that you will not believe, even if one tells it to you.’”

Don’t be the one scoffing.

Be the one telling of God’s amazing work.

Because, as we hope in Him, we will see Him work. We will see Jesus. We will realize our living hope in Him.

New Year’s is just another day. But today, well, today is something special. Today is what we have.

And if our hope is in Jesus, we can see change and we can be change. Right now.

Do you dare to hope even when others scoff? Even when others tap out? https://t.co/PcrPhnhIA6 #amwriting #NewYearsResolution

— Lori Roeleveld (@lorisroeleveld) November 28, 2022

Do you dare to hope for new goals today? Looking for support? Check out my new business, Take Heart! Coaching and Freelance. I’d love to chat. Schedule a free 30-minute Do-We-Fit Session today.