“Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.”   Hebrews 10:23

In a recent book/bible study I led I suggested to the group meeting that we write our own personal confessions of hope.  We have the creeds in our church and on that particular Sunday we had not recited the creed during the service.  In our group study we were discussing Chapter 9, Truth, Stress and Peace of the book “Praying Our Way Through Stress: Drawing Wisdom from the Lord’s Life and Prayer.”   We talked about how the Sword pierced Mary’s soul and how this same Sword pierces our own souls today.

What do we hope in? People can hope it doesn’t rain, doesn’t snow, doesn’t get too cold.  We hope we’ll find the right present, he’ll propose, she’ll say yes, we get the best tickets and the best seats.  We hope another war doesn’t break out somewhere or that our bank or our place of business isn’t robbed.  We hope we won’t get laid off or fired, we hope domestic violence calls will end, we hope our schools will be safe and our kids will do well in school, we hope the computer doesn’t crash and we hope no one dies this year.

But when these things happen, what happens to our hope?  If we’ve placed our hope in things or plans that we’ve made – our hope wavers, we even lose hope.  But when we place our hope in the Lord, we do not lose hope, because we know that he who promised is faithful.  God promised to send a Savior into the world and God did give us Jesus who was sent to teach, to heal, to build up the broken-hearted and restore God’s people to himself.  Prayer helps me hold fast to my hope in God’s love prevailing over the world.

When writing your own confession of hope, write about your personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.  Your personal confession of hope could tell the reason why you still have hope in God’s promise, in the promise of Jesus.  Once you have it written, you can practice sharing it with each other and then with people who have not yet placed their hope in the One who is faithful.