Hope. An expectation or belief in the fulfillment of something desired. Present hurts and uncertainty over what the future holds create the constant need for hope. Worldwide poverty, hunger, disease, and human potential to generate terror and destruction create a longing for something better. Historically people have looked to the future with a mixture of longing and fear. Many have concluded that there is no reasonable basis for hope and therefore to hope is to live with an illusion. Scripture relates being without hope to being in the world without God: remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world (Eph 2:12).

-McAlister, P. K. (1988). Hope. In Baker encyclopedia of the Bible (Vol. 1, p. 996). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.

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