To hope means to wait with positive expectant anticipation. To hope in the Lord, which is what we are told to do, is to always expect good things from God and to wait with confidence and joy until they materialize. A person has to have a legitimate reason to hope, and God is our legitimate reason to hope. If we don't have God as the foundation of our hopes, then we are not hoping, we are just wishing. Living our lives with hope means that every day we expect God to deliver His blessings to us.
 
Now look at this. By changing one word in our definition, we get something quite different.  What would it mean to wait with negative expectant anticipation? Negative expectant anticipation is dread, worry, and fear. In other words, we are expecting something bad to happen and that produces dread, worry, and fear within us. What a change one word can make! Dread, worry, and fear is just negative hope.
 
Of course, it 's impossible to have negative anticipations when we are hoping in the Lord! This brings us to another point. When someone or something, other than the Lord, is the basis for our expectant anticipations, we are in trouble. We are to hope in the Lord and only in the Lord, and we are to hope in Him right now, and forever!!!
 
Read Dr. Jana Alcorn's new book, "Finding the God Zone-Where Hope Lives." You can get this at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or other such retail outlets!