Blog Post

Hope: A Devotional Diary

by J. H. Oldham

Feast of St Macrina, Grandmother of St Basil the Great

Anno Domini 2020, May 30

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy begat us again unto a living hope.

From the scriptures:

Let us rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Tribulation worketh patience; and patience, probation; and probation, hope: and hope putteth not to shame.

The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, in the power of the Holy Ghost.

Having therefore such a hope, we use great boldness of speech.

Christ in you, the hope of glory.

In hope of eternal life.

The hope set before us; which we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and stedfast and entering into that which is within the veil.

Hope is the name of a grace which is characteristic of the religion of the Bible. In reliance on the revealed character of God, it looks forward with confidence to the fulfillment of the Divine purpose. It is a principle of moral action, acting directly on the will. It colors man’s intellectual life. It fortifies the will. It forms a great part of heroic virtue. The heroes of faith in the Bible are also patterns of hope.

Nor can it suit me to forget

The mighty hopes that make us men.

Who, rowing hard against the stream,

Saw distant gates of Eden gleam,

And did not dream it was a dream.

Still nursing the unconquerable hope.

One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,

Never doubted clouds would break,

Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,

Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,

Sleep to wake.

O God, the Author and Fountain of hope, enable us to rely with confident expectation on Thy promises, knowing that the trials and hindrances of the present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed, and having our faces steadfastly set towards the light that shineth more and more to the perfect day.

~From Day 11 of the Fourth Month in A Devotional Diary (London: Student Christian Movement Press, 1925).

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