Hope Anchors Everything

The Hope That Comes Before
When life feels uncertain, my instinct is usually to focus on whatever is right in front of me. I pay attention to the problem that needs solving, the relationship that feels strained, or the responsibility that can't wait until tomorrow. Hope often ends up feeling like a luxury reserved for easier days.

But as I read Paul's opening words in Colossians, I was struck by how differently he sees things. He thanks God for the Colossians' faith and love, yet he traces both of them back to something deeper: a settled confidence in what God has promised. It made me wonder how much of my own faith and love are shaped by the hope I am holding onto, or the hope I have forgotten.

Hope Is the Root, Not the Reward
The good news of the gospel is that our standing before God does not depend on our ability to earn His favor. We belong to Him because of what Christ has done, not because of what we have accomplished.

At the same time, grace is not merely a promise about our future; it is God's power at work in our present. The same grace that forgives us is also transforming us, teaching us to love more deeply, trust more fully, and reflect Christ more clearly.


Paul describes faith and love as fruit growing out of the same root: hope. Scripture shows this pattern on a scale most of us will never personally face. But I want to start with Peter, because when you see it in Acts 10, you begin to recognize it in smaller, closer moments too, like Baptism this past Sunday.

Peter Catching Up to Grace
Peter's vision on the rooftop in Joppa did not make immediate sense to him. Unclean animals, a voice telling him to eat, a command that cut against everything he had been taught about clean and unclean, who belonged inside God's people and who stood outside it. Before he fully understood what it meant, messengers were already at the door. Cornelius, a Roman centurion, had been praying, and the Spirit had already been moving in his house before Peter ever arrived.

Peter's obedience came before his understanding caught up. He walked into a Gentile home not because he had it all figured out, but because he trusted that the same God who had raised Jesus and was still at work in him was now doing something he hadn't expected. That is faith flowing from hope, not confidence that everything will make sense in advance, but willingness to follow when God leads further than he had planned to go.

And then came the love: a Jewish apostle sitting at a Gentile table, welcoming people the purity laws had taught him his whole life to keep at a distance. Not because he had forced himself to feel differently, but because he had caught up to what God was already doing in them. Cornelius wasn't waiting for Peter to arrive before God started working. God had gone ahead. Peter's part was learning to see it.

Standing at the Edge of the Water
This past Sunday I was standing at the edge of the water on Baptism Sunday when a young cowboy I know walked toward the tank to be baptized, with his family and friends watching.

My first instinct about him had been shaped more by the people he spent time around than by him. I had quietly placed him in a category. I did not know the full story of what God had been doing in his heart, only what I could observe from a distance.

But as I stood nearby and watched that moment unfold, I became aware that something deeper was going on than I had assumed. He had come to recognize his need for forgiveness and his desire to walk with Jesus.

When he came up out of the water, the expression on his face was relief and quiet joy, like something heavy had finally been lifted. In that moment, I was reminded again how often I see a category where God is already at work in a person.

This Week
This week, instead of asking God to simply show you who you've misread, pay attention to someone you've decided you already know how their story goes. And then, from the security of what Christ has already done and the hope that He is still at work in people you cannot yet see clearly, take one step toward them in love.

Not to prove anything and not to get it right, but because hope frees you to move toward people without fear. God is the one already at work in them, and He is the one who holds what you cannot yet see. God is the one already at work in them, and He is the one who holds the outcome of your obedience.

A Prayer
Lord, help me see people the way You see them. Where I've put people into categories, soften my heart and open my eyes.
Teach me to trust that You are already at work in places I cannot see.
And give me the courage to respond in love, even when I don't fully understand what You are doing.
Amen.