Bible Verses About Hope: How to Stay Afloat When You’re in a Storm

If there’s a constant in life, it’s that things won’t always go according to plan. Sometimes that is because we’ve planned poorly and not accounted for all the variables, or because we simply couldn’t follow through despite our best intentions. At other times, the thing we want doesn’t happen because there are other people in the equation or life circumstances get in the way. Over time, this can erode hope. This why we need Bible verses about hope.

When a storm hits you, you simply have to hold on for as long as you can until it blows over. Nothing helps you to hold on more than hope. However, clinging to empty hope or false hope is setting yourself up for further disappointment. Your hope has to be anchored to something real, otherwise, it can function as wishful thinking.

For Christians, hope must be placed on God’s promises, and not on our expectations and desires for what we want God to do. God is faithful, but that faithfulness is about what He has said He will do, and not about what we wish Him to do for us.

Our ultimate hope is the hope of resurrection (1 Corinthians 15). While things may ultimately turn out all right when God renews all things in the new heavens and new earth, here and now we may endure hardship, pain, and disappointment.

We may not be spared pain, and that’s something the disciple of Jesus has to embrace. The hope of resurrection is real, and it can sustain us through hardship, but it won’t spare us difficulty and disappointments here and now.

Bible verses about hope

There are many Bible verses about hope that talk about it in different ways. This hope is ultimately grounded upon God’s character as a God who loves His people and desires good for them. Even as God takes His people through what can be best described as a wilderness experience, His intentions are good, and He can be trusted that He has a good purpose. Below are some Bible verses about hope that can sustain you in times of hardship when you’re walking through a storm.

He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. – Isaiah 40:29-31, NIV

No matter your strengths and gifts, there are times when you inevitably come to the end of yourself. Sometimes, the very thing you relied upon disappoints you, like your youth, intellect, or self-sufficiency.

During a time of unfaithfulness in Judah, Isaiah spoke about how human strength would fail, but hoping and trusting in the Lord would be the salvation of the nation. God is the only one who doesn’t fail or falter, and He can be trusted with our future.

I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. – Lamentations 3:19-26, NIV

After centuries of disobeying God, of being unjust by oppressing the poor, and of failing to live up to the calling they had received, God eventually gave His people up to the desires of their hearts. They wanted to serve foreign gods and to be aligned with other nations that didn’t know God, so God gave them over to that.

Jerusalem was besieged, and many of its people were taken into exile where they would be forced to serve foreign gods. These verses from Lamentations are a bitter reflection on the destruction that just took place.

When devastation comes into your life, and if that devastation is a result of poor choices you have made, how do you respond to it? The writer of Lamentations gives us an idea of what a godly response is:

• Acknowledge the reality of your sorrow and the depth of pain the situation has caused.
• Recognize God’s faithfulness, love, and mercy in the circumstances.
• Wait patiently for God as well as continue to hope in God as opposed to scrambling to try and fix things yourself.

 

God is gracious, and He doesn’t turn away from us when we’ve made a mess of things. He is the same God that was willing to die for us while we were still sinners (Romans 5:8), so we can trust that He doesn’t abandon us in our despair. We can continue to hope in Him, His goodness, and His rescue.

We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many. – 2 Corinthians 1:8-11, NIV

Are people who believe in God spared hardship? These verses are from the apostle Paul, who suffered much because of holding onto the gospel. Instead of seeing his sufferings as signs of God’s abandonment, Paul saw it as God helping him to rely on and hope in God instead of on himself.

This hope includes an understanding that God is the God who raises the dead. Paul understands that as he serves the Lord, he might die. Paul did die in the service of Christ, and he had already embraced that possibility.

Paul’s hope was not simply that God would rescue him from peril, though He certainly did that on many occasions; Paul’s hope in God recognized that even if he wasn’t released from prison, or saved from a shipwreck, or spared from being stoned by people, God would ultimately deliver him because He is the God who raises the dead. This is a robust hope that even death cannot conquer.

Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. – Romans 5:3-5, NIV

Being tested and enduring hard things develops resilience and strength of character. Because God has already given His people the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts and remind us of God’s love for us, we can hope and be assured that God will fulfill all that He has promised.

These words are hard for us to bear because we want to spare those we love from any pain as far as possible. However, Jesus set the pattern for all who want to follow Him, and part of our growth as His followers is to endure the hardship that inevitably comes to those who desire to be like Jesus in a world that hates Him (John 15: 18-27). Our hope can sustain us in those seasons of difficulty.

Taking steps to restore hope

Christian hope is a robust hope that death can’t conquer, which is why there are so many Bible verses about hope. The ultimate hope of resurrection and the renewal of all things by God allows us to live hopefully in daily life. The setbacks we encounter cannot separate us from God’s love, so we can continue to hope. Because God is a God who delivers people, even from messes they’ve made, we can hope.

If you’re struggling to hope, don’t stand far off and remain in despair. Why don’t you talk to someone, like a friend, a spiritual leader, or a professional counselor? A counselor is trained to help you process your experiences, which includes uprooting any unhealthy ways of thinking about yourself or your situation.

If you’re losing or have lost hope, take that next step and reach out today for help.