Getting Your Hopes Up
Hey, Girl… It’s time to get your hopes up.
High, high, high.
As high as the heavens are above the earth.
Because that’s how great your God’s steadfast love is towards you.
I see you, girl. That shadow on your face that speaks of ruined dreams and crushed expectations. I feel as though I can almost read your thoughts as you avert your eyes, and they tell a story that is strangely yet expectedly similar to my own.
Because you did get your hopes up…so so so so many times and just as many times, they were cruelly devastated.
Oh, you were a wild, crazy dreamer…if there ever was one. But then life happened. Evil happened. Disappointing people happened. The enemy of your soul happened. And in the wake of it all, you happened to find your hope in ruins. Unrecognizable amidst your shattered dreams.
And so you quit.
And cynicism began to entwine its deadly tentacles around your bruised soul.
You buried your hope. Deep, deep down inside the part in your heart you felt was dying, you covered it up with every crushed expectation and deflated dream. And you left it there to die.
And somewhere, in-between the hoping and the wrecking and the burying, you realized you’d forgotten how to dream.
But you know what? Hope has a way of not staying dead, of getting up, and walking out of the graves we achingly create.
It’s time for you to get your hopes up.
Not in a circumstance or an outcome, because hope is not an outcome.
Hope is a Person.
Girl, if all your hope is in Hope Himself, you can never get your hopes too high.
Because hope is not wishful thinking, a strong-arming of your emotions to disregard the reality of your circumstances and attempt to live inside a fantasy world of your own creation. No, hope is a confident expectation. It is a joy-filled watching for the good that you are convinced is coming.
Hope looks circumstance square in the eye and says, “My God reigns. My expectation is in Him, not you.”
Hope sings its loudest songs when the dark voices are the most deafening. It’s choicest melodies have been composed in the inky blackness of the darkest night.
Real, live hope is defiant. The pain and devastation it faces only causes it to set its jaw more squarely, to glare its eye more obstinately, and to press on even more aggressively.
Hope is audacious. It doesn’t stick to the script and it plays by no rule. In fact, by most standards, hope is completely impractical. Setbacks are cause for excitement because hope knows that the best stories always have unexpected twists. Hope laughs in the face of impossibility and declares with a twinkle in its eye that it shall be done.
Hope believes against itself.
Hope is full of grit. It is strength and darn-set determination. It caused a man sitting in the ash heap that was his life to cry out through tears of resolve, “Though He slay me, yet will I hope in Him.” (Job 13:15)
Hope is induced with the supernatural strength of Heaven.
Maybe the wildest thing about hope is that it seems to thrive in the most hopeless places.
Just when you thought there was no way hope could be anywhere near the vicinity, there it is…rising above, looking oh so out of place, standing tall and brave in the midst of the barren, suffocating wilderness.
Because hope is evergreen. It flourishes completely independent of outward circumstances.
Hope is an entity all its own.
Because remember, girl, hope is really a Person.
And so ultimately, hope is Christ in you. His overcoming Life breathing into your soul and blowing straight through your most dead and hopeless places.
Oh yes, it’s time you got your hopes up.
Because your Hope has been lifted up and enthroned in the highest Place at the right hand of your God, the Father of fathers, where He sits steadfast and confident in who He is.
Do you see Him there?
Can you feel Him here?
Can you feel Him breathing a fresh, fiery wind of faith into your being, incinerating every doubt, lie, and what-if that’s been gnawing through your aching heart?
It’s Hope Himself filling you, pouring Life into every crevice of your soul, teaching you to dream with Him again.
Oh, He’s lifting your hope to the level of His character.
Girl, He really is that good.
He really is that faithful.
He really is that near.
So sweet girl…get your hopes up.
Baylie Wintle lives in a cozy red cottage in the Ozark Mountains (along with coffee and lots of books). Her passion is to see the Kingdom of God be revealed on earth as it is in heaven. She writes regularly on enjoying God through all aspects of life as well as her mental health journey on her blog. Follow her on Instagram.
