Thousands of books and countless sermons have been written and preached about faith, but relatively few about hope. Yet you cannot have faith without hope because "faith is the substance of things hoped for" . Hope is hearing the music of the future while faith is dancing to it today.One of the reasons for this lack of teaching is because we don't really understand what hope is and how vital and powerful it is to a life that is worth living. The devil attacks our hope because he wants to destroy and undermine our faith. He knows that people filled with Godly hope are joyful and powerful.The title for this book came one day as I was watching a documentary on Base Jumping. It's when a climber carries a parachute or flying suit up to some high place on a mountain or other platform and instead of climbing back down they jump off and glide to the bottom.It's not something I have a desire to do but I enjoy watching those who do and finding out why they do it. In the documentary there was an interview with one of the world's most famous "base jumpers" who described the elation involved in flying through the air. But it was something else he referred to that captured my attention. He said that climbing high peaks can be very dangerous and there are times when you reach out for a hand or foot hold and you are not sure if you will make it. On a few occasions he did this and either slipped or the rock gave way causing him to fall from the cliff and be hurtling thousands of feet to certain death. But after a few seconds he pulled the ripcord to the parachute on his back and there was the glorious sound of it opening and filling with air. His comment was, "There is no experience like it. One moment you are dying and the next you are flying. It is going from the worst possible experience to the best in just a few moments of time."God has given us something far better than a "chute" on our back - we have the promise and presence of His amazing love and faithfulness. Hopelessness is one of the worst experiences in life. It's like falling from a great height and waiting for the inevitable crash. On the way down dread and foreboding can become so awful you are almost glad when the bottom comes to get it over with. Such despair plays tricks with the mind. It doesn't even matter if you are really falling - so long as you think you are, or believe it will be bad news from the doctor or you will lose your job or a thousand other fearful possibilities - life is sucked out of you. Hope means to trust that God's future is for us. It is knowing that He is in control not only of world history but our personal history. Whatever we face we do it with Him. Our future does not belong to chance or life's uncertainties - it belongs to God. He not only gives us hope for the future but hope and a future,( Jeremiah 29:15).
