Rocky Road Devotions: HOPE

August 24, 2026

Let us hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering, since he who promised is faithful. Hebrews 10:23

My son’s feline child is named “Hope”. She is a living, breathing, stalking dichotomy; she sleeps roughly 60 hours each day and for the other 12 minutes she is bouncing off every wall and door in our house. The energy she stores up sleeping in the bay window seat comes out in the “zoomies”, mostly late at night when the rest of the semi-normal people are trying to sleep. Hope’s energy rivals what you would find in an exploding star; she’s a feline super-nova telling the rest of the universe to get out of the way – this is MY moment, I’m unstoppable! A few weeks ago, our Sunday School class lesson was on servanthood. Paul wrote to the Corinthian church that there is no other foundation (no other hope if you will) for God’s plans and work in the universe, than Jesus Christ[1] With due respect to our feline resident’s delicate psyche’, she is not the real hope for humanity, even though she strongly believes so.

The word “hope” can be used in many ways. One of those is to express a longing for something, such as, “I hope the mail comes early today.” We might use the word to express a fear, such as, “I hope that noise I hear under my car’s hood won’t be expensive”. (How’s that one working out for you?) That kind of hope has two possibilities, positive or negative (that early mail might include a check!) Hoping about that engine noise usually turns out less than positive in my experience. But the hope in which we place our trust in Jesus Christ is not such an “iffy” thing that can go good or bad; rather it is more the expression of certainty. When we’re certain of the outcome of what the future holds, we say something like, “you can take that to the bank” …or, “you can bet your life on that”. There is no uncertainty when it comes to Christ’s love for us, or His forgiveness of our sins, or the power He has to extend eternal life. He doesn’t just give us hope; He IS our hope.

As a pastor serving Jesus Christ, I have met too many people over the last half-century who have a “hope-so” answer to the question “Are you saved?”. They have placed the weight of where they will spend eternity on a “hope” that has good and bad possibilities, and they’re longing for the good. They hope they’ve done it ok, lived this life “right enough” so that God will take them to Heaven. Frankly, that kind of hope (or faith) merely casts a shadow of doubt over God’s ability to forgive our sin and save us from sin’s penalty…death. That doesn’t make sense; if Jesus died, was buried, and raised again on the third day so our sins can be forgiven, why the doubt? Why believe Satan’s accusation that he whispers in your ear. Something like: “Well, sure, God forgave that little white lie about your wife’s new hairstyle, and that one you said when she asked if that outfit made her look fat, but what is forgivable about the way you cheated that retired widow out of $20-grand for that worthless car you sold her?”

We confess such and then doubt. And that isn’t even close to placing our trust in He who conquered sin and death. He alone is our hope, the foundation of all God’s promises of Heaven

For You Today

When it comes to our hope and eternity, we can sit back and watch life go by at warp speed like my son’s cat doing her nightly zoomies, or we can sleep like that cat does through life, ignoring the threat of our human frailty passing into eternity. Or we can place our faith, our life, past, present, and the eternity of our future in His strength – our only foundation, Jesus Christ, our HOPE.

I have it on irrefutable authority that your doubt is not the end of you, because Jesus died to take even that to the cross. Do you recall one of Jesus’ disciples we call “doubting Thomas”? One look at the risen Lord and he fell to his knees, and his faith was placed in the only hope the world, the universe, and your heart needs![2]

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!