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Poet Emily Dickinson penned the phrase*, “Hope is the thing with feathers,” and that sounds all cute and flowery, but the metaphor concerns me a bit because it makes hope seem elusive like it could fly away at any time.

I’ve always struggled with the notion of hope. In my life, it’s been more of an elusive bird than a secure anchor. Just when I think I’ve got a grasp on it, it’s gone. It wasn’t until recently that I realized that it escaped me so often not because hope was flighty, but because I didn’t actually know what it meant.

Hebrews 6:19 famously says, “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain.” (NIV)

I don’t know about you, but up until recently when I read that verse, I thought it was talking about the action of hoping; a verb. That hoping for something, an outcome, is an anchor for the soul; it’s what keeps us going. We need something to hope for or look forward to in life. That’s not entirely wrong, but it’s also not entirely right either.

You see, in that verse, hope is used as a noun. It's a thing. If you really want to get into specifics, it’s actually used as a direct object which is always a noun. I looked into it further to see if that syntax was specific to our English translation only to find that the part of speech is indeed consistent with the original Greek. The word used there for “hope” is “elpidos” which is a noun that means, “hope, expectation, trust, confidence.” The question now is, “What makes up this hope?” And the answer to that, my friend, makes all the difference in the world.

Our hope is Jesus. I know that sounds obvious but stay with me here. In that sentence, “hope” is an appositive (or renaming word) for what Jesus did for us on the cross 2,000 years ago. That “hope” is that we have been made right with God. I know this because in the next sentence he says, “It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain,” which is what Jesus’s death did for us. The pronoun “it” is referencing the noun, “hope,” in the sentence before.

In other words (in non-grammatical terms), this verse is saying that the hope that anchors us and keeps us going is that Jesus has made us right with God and thus we look forward to the day where we can be with Him in heaven. That’s hope. Our overused, earthly version of hope doesn’t even compare.

We hope we will get a new job and then we don’t. We hope that relationship will work out and it doesn’t. We hope the Redskins go to the Superbowl and then they don’t because they’re terrible. So what happens then? We’ve lost our hope. That’s a dangerous place to be because hope is indeed what keeps us going in life. If we lose it, it stands to reason life is no longer worth living. Problem is, a lot of us lose hope because it was the wrong kind of hope. That kind of hope is too elusive and inconsistent. It is indeed a flighty thing.

You see, hope as a noun – heavenly hope - is not crossing your fingers and hoping for the best, it’s a certainty in the promises of God and His character. The finished work of Christ is certain. It is not fragile, and it is safe because it is quite literally stored in heavenly places. Matthew 6:19-21 says that which is stored in heaven is safe from ruin or decay, which is why it’s compared metaphorically to an anchor. Where it is stored is what causes it to be secure. When we store our hope in earthly outcomes or wishes, it’s no wonder it is so elusive!

This perspective changed my entire outlook on life. Sure, I can wish for things to happen, that’s not wrong, but if they don’t happen, I’ve not lost my reason for living. I’ve not lost my faith. I no longer have the incorrect idea that an earthly outcome is tied to God’s faithfulness.

This is a game-changer. If we can start to see hope for what it truly is, I believe disappointment will have lost most of its hold on us and we can start seeing God in a more accurate way. God is a redeemer, not a magical genie. He’s given us security with Him not necessarily a fragile outcome that we wish for.

It’s like hoping that no one steals your money when you put it under your mattress and being certain that your money is safe in the bank. Where you put it makes all the difference.