It's been happening a lot recently where I am listening to a song and taking in the words, and all of a sudden, a phrase jumps out at me that I previously would have ignored. So often I think we get to the point where we become calloused to songs that we've sung so many times that they become more of a top 40 hit rather than a love song to the redeemer of our souls.

Today the line was in Hillsong United's "Saviour King" (see the player at the bottom of the page to listen!). I was grading papers during my planning period at school and seemingly out of nowhere (although we all know it certainly was not out of nowhere -- I see you Jesus), I felt God speak truth to me through this phrase: "Hope which was lost, now stands renewed."

Take a minute to take a brief inventory of your life. Have you lost your hope recently? Is it like a library book you've lost track of that you've looked around to find, but have just decided it would be easier to concede and pay the fine?

Hope is always, always, always part of the equation, but so often we are careless with where we place our hope. Christ calls us to hope IN Him but wants us to hope FOR good gifts. Those are two crucial prepositions with very different functions and if misplaced can lead away from Him.

I've been learning this very lesson myself. Recently, I lost hope that God would bless me with a marriage. There are two crucial layers to this; yes, I lost my hope FOR something, but I also shortchanged God because I lost my hope IN Him that He was able to come through for me. My hope was lost like the library book I checked out long ago and lost track of over the period of time I was entrusted with it.

Obviously, I'm not on the other side of that particular mountain, but that which was lost now stands renewed. God has taken my lost hope and dream, and renewed it. I say renewed because it's not that I found my hope. No, God has renewed it; He's made it new and has flipped it around so it directs to Him above the hope FOR things.

There are so many trials on this earth that seem so heavy and hopeless. But God's plan on this Earth is for a hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11). Without that hope our hearts are sick; without hope, we have nothing to live for.

I'd like to encourage you to ask God to renew your lost hope today and BELIEVE that you will have that breakthrough. Maybe it's a hope for a family member to have a breakthrough, maybe it's hope that you will overcome a trial you've been battling with for years. Whatever it is, I encourage you to ask Him to renew your hope and fulfill that dream you've been longing for.


"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life." - Proverbs 13:12 (NLT)