Hope

  

  I don't know if you choose a word for the year, but it is something that I have started doing. Last year (2019) my word was intentional. For me I wanted to be more intentional with being present, with my family, in my devotions, in my prayer life, with whoever I was with, I wanted to be intentional. My focus was on prayer and reading books on prayer. 

    This year (2020) my word is hope. I don't know that there could have been a more suitable word for this year. I have needed hope, the world has needed hope. So, what is hope?     

    According to the dictionary, hope is "a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen. A feeling of trust. A person or thing that my help or save someone. Grounds for believing that something good may happen."

    Other words often used in place of hope:  

anticipation, belief, expectation, faith, expectancy, gain, 

hopefulness, and security.

    My verse for the year is Isaiah 40:31-"But those who HOPE in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint."

   So, how does this work? What do I do with my word? How do I get my word?

I pray about my word for the year until I feel like God has pressed it upon me. Once I have my word I write it down in a notebook. Then I look the word up and define it, because I want to be clear on the meaning. Then I look up synonyms for that word and write them too. If I have a particular verse that I feel is "my" verse, I write that with it. Once I have done all this I am ready to do more.

In my morning quiet time, I will spend part of my quiet time each morning looking up the Scriptures with my word in it and will write it out. I use the concordance at the back of my Bible for this. It usually takes a couple of months to get all the words written in the notebook with its variations (like hopes). I also make notes of when I see that word in books that I read, on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as well. It's not necessarily the most effective way of doing it, but it is how I have done it the past two years (it will be different in 2021). 

However, somewhere along the way I seemed to have forgotten my word and stopped looking for it in places once I had all the Scripture written out. What do you think happened? I started to feel hopeless. Had my circumstances changed? Not really. Had a catastrophe happened? Well, kind of with the coronavirus, but really we were safe and we were getting a lot of time together. The problem was I had shifted my focus. I was no longer looking for hope, so I wasn't finding it. I was letting the circumstances around me dictate what I was looking for (as I studied headlines, newsfeeds etc) and I started to see more chaos and hatred. This left me feeling despair and hopeless. 

The thing is, nothing had truly changed except my focus. So, what to do about it? Realizing you have a problem is the first step to solving it. I had a focus problem and I needed to refocus. I don't know if it happens to you, but we often find ourselves focusing on things that we don't want to focus on, and then don't seem to have the time or energy to put our focus where we want it. For me, setting this word, helps me to know where to keep my focus. When I set my goals for the year, I keep that word in mind. I have found my focus again, and I know what I need to do in order to keep that focus. It doesn't mean it's going to be easy, but I want to live a hope-filled life, not a hopeless life. My hope is in Christ, not this world, not my circumstances, not my family, not our money, not my church, not the government, I find my HOPE in Jesus Christ.

Do you set a focus word? How do you go about getting your word? Do you already have your word? I feel like the Lord has led me to my word for 2021, but I am going to keep praying to be sure. It is going to be challenging, which is how I am pretty sure it is my word!! I would love to hear whether you chose a word or not.