We often think of hope as short-term planning: What do you hope will happen in your upcoming job interview; your athletic competition; or you current dating relationship? But hope isn’t the same as goal-setting. Hope offers us something greater; it is an invitation to a promise that is bigger than our own lives.

As we maintain a focus on hope, we find that hope is not a stagnant entity. Hope is not just something we think about or believe in, hope is a motivator that leads us into action. Like a daily walk, hope is something that we practice and live out.

The Old Testament offers a beautiful witness to the power of hope in story. By offering hope in story, we are able to pass on hope, to share hope, and to include the greater community in the promise of hope.

Hope, properly defined, is a full-body experience. It lives not just in our minds or souls, but hope lives in the body. It’s visible, experienced, and felt in every fiber of our being.

After we have defined what hope is not, we can go back to the drawing paper to define what hope is. Hebrews defines hope as “a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul.” What is this, and how do we claim such hope?

When we confuse what hope is, we might wonder how Job ever held on to hope in the midst of his troubles and trials. To understand how Job maintained hope, it would do us well to first understand what hope is not.