Hope is a gift from God for sanctification. The idea seems more obvious now than it did six weeks ago, though it’s always been true. But, how shall we comprehend hope? Poet Emily Dickinson offers us some vivid imagery in her 314th poem:

“Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.
And sweetest in the Gale is heard
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I’ve heard it in the chillest land
And on the strangest sea
Yet never in extremity
It asked a crumb of me.”

Hope is a gift from God for sanctification.

Webster’s take on both the verb and noun is, as we might expect, rather prosaic. Hope v 1. To cherish a desire with anticipation. 2. (archaic) Trust. vt: 1. To desire with expectation of obtainment. 2. To expect with confidence.
Hope n. 1 Archaic: trust, reliance. 2.a desire accompanied by expectation of or belief in fulfillment or success. 2.b someone or something on which hopes are centered. 2.c something hoped for.

Hope is a gift from God for sanctification.

I disagree with Webster that trust is an archaic definition for hope. Cynical people already discredit the other definitions of the verb. What’s most important about hope’s noun definition in our daily life, even without a rampaging viral pandemic, is the first word of 2b: Someone.
Who should be the center of our trust? Not a family member, not a spouse, not anyone in government, but the Giver of the gift of hope. “For you have been my hope, O Sovereign Lord, my confidence since my youth. From birth I have relied on you; you brought me forth from my mother’s womb. I will ever praise you.”
Properly centered hope sanctifies us by applying our focus to God, not our ever-shifting circumstances.

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