Do not let your heart envy sinners,

But live in the fear of the LORD always.

Surely there is a future,

And your hope will not be cut off.

Listen, my son, and be wise, 

And direct your heart in the way.

Do not be with heavy drinkers of wine,

Or with gluttonous eaters of meat;

For the heavy drinker and the glutton will come to poverty,

And drowsiness will clothe one with rags.

Proverbs 23:17-21

Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 15:13

Hope is an interesting thing. One that we rarely think through deeply, but psychological research has shown that it’s absolutely essential for us as humans. So it’s not a big surprise that hope is found woven throughout Scripture.

When we talk about hope, we often do so in the context of hoping things will get better. Our circumstances probably look pretty bleak, but we cling to the hope that they will not always be this bad. Or maybe things are good right now and we hope they will stay that way.

That’s worldly hope—the kind of hope our imperfect and broken world offers—but there’s another kind of hope found in Scripture, and it’s pretty amazing.

Proverbs 23 gives us an idea of the difference between the two. Proverbs is exactly what it sounds like—a book of wise sayings—so it can sometimes feel disjointed with each verse expressing a completely different idea, but verses 17-21 serve as a small paragraph focusing on the same theme: Don’t put your hope in this world. Put your hope in God.

It starts by reminding the reader to focus on God rather than on the pleasures of the world. In my version, it uses the phrase “but live in the fear of the LORD always.” The original word for fear means to revere or to be in awe of something or someone. 

It’s the same kind of fear that brings people to the zoo to see lions and tigers and bears. These are amazing and powerful creatures and it is a marvel to see them up close in real life, although we do have a very different kind of fear that also keeps us from trying to climb into their enclosures. When we see the phrase “live in the fear of the LORD,” however, the author isn’t saying we should fear the Lord and try to stay away. He’s saying that rather than focus on how good those other people seem to have it, we should focus on how amazing and powerful God is.

That may seem strange if you don’t know Jesus, but there’s a very important reason for it—because there is hope in knowing how good and amazing and powerful God is.

We get a little bit of insight into this when we look at the rest of this passage. The things the worldly people cling to are food, drink, and the kind of wealth that allows them to indulge in these things to the point of gluttony. But there’s a problem—a few of them, actually—with staking our hopes on these things. They are all temporary. They are really good until the last bite and the indigestion, until the last sip and the hangover, until the last penny and the destitution. All of these things, and any other thing of this world that we might rely on, are all so quickly and so easily lost.

Hope from the world is cheap. At best, it looks to a short-lived future where we get a break from difficulties and maybe enjoy some financial prosperity. At worst, it looks to a future where things are just slightly better than what we are currently experiencing. What’s more, the world’s kind of hope that focuses on circumstance, social standing, and material wealth is an illusion that evaporates as soon as those things are lost.

That’s why biblical hope is so amazing. Because of the power and the astounding goodness of God, we don’t look forward to a mere possibility. And we definitely don’t look forward to something as small as a slightly better reality than what we are currently experiencing. We look forward to a future and a hope that can never be destroyed.

We look forward to the ultimate fulfillment of all our needs, the ultimate healing of all our hurts, and the ultimate experience of the fullness of life, and we can do so with one hundred percent certainty. There is a deep rest that comes with this kind of hope, a rest deep enough to strengthen us to overcome and endure the trials of life.

Romans describes this rest as joy and peace that comes from knowing the God of hope. God of hope. Hope is almost used as part of His name or His identity, and I love that because if we let Him, He will be our source of peace. He wants that for us—to know that He is powerful enough to care for us, that He is kind enough and loving enough to want to, and that He is constant enough that He won’t change His mind about us.

If you’ve never experienced the hope that has no end, I hope you’ll step into seeking that hope from the God who would be nothing short of overjoyed to give it to you. That may look like reading the Bible, talking to the pastor of a local church or someone you know who is a Christian, or shooting me a dm with your questions, but whatever it looks like, I pray you’ll take that step.

If you have experienced the God of hope, remind yourself. We live in a world of temporary hopes, so we sometimes treat the hope of God like it’s temporary. Remind yourself often of how great and wonderful He is, and that the hope He offers will never end or fail.