A safety net is something that provides security against misfortune or difficulty. It is commonly associated with trapeze artists or construction workers who risk falling to the ground from a towering height. It creates greater confidence in doing daring or risky things. 

Years ago, I heard my wife, Wendy, say something new while we were preaching together. She said, “Faith without hope is weird.” We had been talking about the importance of making sure we are adding hope to our faith. 

Here is how I see the difference between faith and hope. Faith is very specific, while hope is more general. Faith says, “God is going to do this.” Hope says, “I don’t know specifically what God is going to do, but good things are coming. Faith says, “This prayer will be answered.” Hope says, “Even if that prayer is not answered, I am going to thrive, and I am going to thrive while I am waiting for it to manifest.”

Faith-people without hope (or who have low levels of hope) have difficulty overcoming disappointment. This is because they have a subconscious belief that they have limited options to be fulfilled or effective in life. They tend to wait for a certain thing to happen (a prayer answered, a family member getting saved, a promotion happens, etc.) and THEN they will really live. Hope-people believe God has many avenues or ways to get us into our purpose and destiny. 

Hope is like a car’s navigational GPS system. When we make a wrong turn or if the desired road is blocked, it does not say to us, “This trip is over! I cannot get you to where you need to go from here!” No, it says, “Recalculating. I can still get you to where you need to be from here.” 

Here are two great hope verses:

• “I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” (Psalm 27:13) - Hope is an overall optimistic attitude about the future based on the goodness and promises of God. Without believing unspecified good things are coming, the Psalmist says he would “lose heart”. 
• “Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead.” (Philippians 3:13) - The Apostle Paul says he “forgets” the disappointments of the past and “reaches forward to those things which are ahead.” These “those things” are non-specific good happenings Paul believed was ahead for him. 

Faith people with little or no hope often live with what Isaiah 61:3 calls a “spirit of heaviness”. This again is created by the subtle belief that we cannot really thrive until certain specific things happen. The antidote to this is Psalm 37:4. “Delight yourself also in the Lord,

and He shall give you the desires of your heart.” Instead of having a spirit of heaviness over unfulfilled desires, the Psalmist urges us to “delight IN the Lord”. This is a child-like focus on God’s goodness and promises that actually increases the likelihood of seeing desires fulfilled (because we actually have established the internal beliefs to steward the blessing of fulfilled desires well). Delighters love celebratory, joy-filled praise in addition to deep inner-court worship. Faith people with little or no hope tend to not want to spend much time in this celebratory praise because it feels inauthentic, but God has given us “the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness” (Isaiah 61:3). Hope people value and make room for this garment of praise. 

“Faith without hope is weird.” Ha ha. This statement by Wendy has helped me value hope in a great way. And as we see hope as the safety net for when what we believe for in faith does not happen, then we can live much more boldly and take more risks in life (because we will increasingly believe “if this does not work out, then something better will come). I bless you on your journey of adding great hope to your great faith. 

Please note: I believe we are to tenaciously stand in faith for things to happen, but I believe the church has under-emphasized the power of hope, and this is the point I am wanting to make in this blog. :)