Course Content
Learn to trust in the one unshakeable source of hope when the world around you is so discouraging.
There has been a lot of talk about “hope” lately. It started with the comment from First Lady Michelle Obama to Oprah Winfrey: "We feel the difference now, see now. We are feeling what not having hope feels like." She told Oprah Winfrey this in an interview, a clip of which aired on CBS recently. "Hope is necessary. It's a necessary concept, and Barack didn't just talk about hope because he thought it was just a nice slogan to get votes." She went on to say: "He and I and so many believe that. What else do you have if you don't have hope?" The First Lady added, "What do you give your kids if you can't give them hope?" Yes, the Obamas and many others did suffer a loss in the election results, but is that a reason to lose hope?
Let our hearts be well and let our minds be well, because we are filled with hope in God!
There are others coming back with comments that for the first time since Donald Trump was elected, they now have hope. Yes, they won the election, and I am sure excitement prevails, but is that a reason to have hope? Should our hope be in a man?
In another clip I saw on YouTube, a man was talking about that word again: “hope.” He has a ministry of going into prisons and trying to offer hope to traumatized inmates who have just entered into the prison system. The message he is trying to give them is hope in God. There lies the key! Men who have every reason to lose hope are being told that their hope is in God!
Did you know that having no hope can make you sick? Numerous studies have been documented to prove that angry emotions like withholding forgiveness, along with feelings of jealousy and hatred can take years off your life. Proverbs 13:12 states that “hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”
So what is hope? Hope is a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen. Both sides from the election are placing their hope in the wrong thing instead of God.
Michelle Obama raised some valid questions, one of which was: "What do you give your kids if you can't give them hope?" The answer to First Lady Obama’s question is: You point them to God! God is the answer; not men, nor things. But God, who is Eternal!
Our President-elect Donald Trump is human, and he will let those people down who now have tremendous hope in him. Even though men will always at some point let us down, God will never let us down!
Even if we are going through a heartbreak, sickness, a setback; even if we are entering a prison with walls or a prison in our mind, God is our hope, no matter what we are going through.
In Hebrew 11:1 it says, “Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see" (New Living Translation). First Lady Obama is right about her concern when she asks, “What else do you have if you don't have hope?” The answer is that we have no hope if it is misplaced on men and other things and not on God. “Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save” (Psalm 146:3, New International Version), and, “Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD their God” (Psalm 146:5).
Let our hearts be well and let our minds be well, because we are filled with hope in God! There is no need to have a sick heart when we have God as our hope.
Janet Treadway was born in Washington, D.C., but was raised in Knoxville, Tennessee. She started attending the Church of God with her mother at the age of 14 along with her twin brother, Jim.
She was baptized at the age of 19 in 1974. She has been involved in various activities, such as serving as the managing editor of UCG’s first teen magazine UsTeens, which was distributed worldwide and published in English and Spanish.
Janet’s first love is writing. She has contributed many articles in various publications such as Vertical Thought, Virtual Christian Magazine, United News and others. Her article “Take Action, Your Life May Depend on It” is also featured in the reprint “The Cycle of Abuse.” Janet draws from her own life’s experiences and challenges when she writes and is motivated to give readers hope that God will see them through anything.
Janet has worked in the home office of the United Church of God since 1998. She is married to Charles Treadway and has four children, David, Michelle, Michael and Josh, as well as six grandchildren and two granddogs, Jo Jo and Vinny.
