We often think that hope is something nebulous and abstract—something you can’t quite grasp.
Who can KNOW the future? No one.
We say that we “hope in GOD”—we fling our thoughts and prayers upward with some wishful inkling that they will somehow reach their mark and make a difference. Sometimes, we cast our hope as if we’re tossing out a sea anchor in a storm. As a last resort to steady our vessel, we wait for our hopes to catch onto something solid in the dark realms we cannot see.
But, that is not the kind of hope that God offers to us. Hope isn’t a product of our own imagination or wishful thinking. No, in fact, it’s God’s thoughts of us that give us a TANGIBLE, graspable someTHING to hold onto—our HOPE. Jeremiah 29:11 says, “‘For I know the thoughts that I think toward you,’ saith the LORD, ‘thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.’” (KJV)
The word in Hebrew translated as “expected end” is “tiqvah.” This same word, “tiqvah”, often appears in Scriptures as “hope.” But it’s more than just hope—it literally means a “ROPE of HOPE.” Not just a feeling that you can’t quite get your hands on, always out of reach. No, something much more tactile and material.
“His thoughts of us are real,” Jeremiah says, in so many words. God thinks about us, and as He does, His very thoughts weave themselves together and materialize into a saving lifeline that we can hold onto. Tangible. Secure. Unbreakable. “He KNOWS the way that I take,” Job said. He sees, He cares, He knows—I can know that He knows—and that IS my rope of HOPE.
This is the kind of hope that God promises—and “Hope never disappoints, because God has poured out His love into our hearts through the Holy Ghost, that He has given us. (Romans 5:5)
Interestingly, this SAME word—“tiqvah”—was the word used for Rahab’s scarlet cord, the rope that marked her house when Jericho fell. It was the “tiqvah” that provided HOPE and SALVATION for her and her entire household (Joshua 2:18) and, incidentally, also secured her place forever in the Messianic line. (Matthew 1:5-6) Just as real as Rahab’s “tiqvah”, so God has provided each of us a solid scarlet lifeline of HOPE, by His thoughts and in His Word, if we will grasp it, use it, and trust it.
The National Anthem of the State of Israel is “Hatikvah”—The Hope, or Our Hope. It speaks of a hope as real as the Land and as enduring as Jerusalem.
As long as within our hearts
The Jewish soul sings,
As long as forward to the East
To Zion, looks the eye –
Our hope is not yet lost,
It is two thousand years old,
To be a free people in our land
The land of Zion and Jerusalem.
I can say with the Psalmist, “For thou art my hope (tiqvah), O Lord GOD: thou art my trust from my youth.” (Psalm 71:5)
Yes, LORD, You are my own TIQVAH. You have not been just a vague belief, a wish upon a star, or a dream of somewhere over the rainbow. You are my strength, LORD—my ROPE of HOPE—real and secure and within my reach. I am never lost or left with nothing to hold onto—I have clung to it all my life. My hope has been more than an anchor—it has been the anchor chain—a strong “tiqvah” that has tethered me to YOU. It pulls me heavenward—through whatever storms lie ahead, and it will be my LIFELINE all the way home.
“For thou art my tiqvah, O Lord GOD.”
