In his first epistle to the church, Peter wrote: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. (1 Peter 1:3) Hope is a word that is not always easy to describe. The Merrian-Webster Dictionary says it is a desire accompanied by expectation of or belief in fulfillment. Perhaps we don't realize it as we should, but hope plays a big part in our daily lives. For example, when it comes to a source for describing words, not everyone places their hopes on the Merrian-Webster. As with all other emotions, there are varying degrees of hope. For example here, a team who wins half of their games, probably won't pin as much hope on their star player as the one who wins four out of every five. That is why Peter referred to our hope in Christ as being a lively one. In the Old Testament, repeatedly we read of pagan people who placed their trust in manufactured idols and false gods. In Elijah's time, 450 of Baal's false prophets prayed, hollered, and danced for hours, and even cut themselves calling upon him. They never got a response. When Elijah afterwards lifted up a thirty-second prayer to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Lord responded by fire in an instant. (See the story in 1Kings 18) Why didn't their false gods respond? Because only our God is a Living God! This is the reason that Peter, referring to our hope in Christ, also added: Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now you see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. (1 Peter 1:8) There is no higher level of hope than the one we have in Christ. It indeed is a joy unspeakable! When it's reality sinks in, it is the kind that makes us want to shout. Of course, many of us will usually refrain during church because we don't want others to think we're not dignified. Imagine what Martha and Mary felt when they saw their brother Lazarus being raised from the dead, or Jacob being reunited with his son Joseph, whom he supposed had been killed in the wilderness many years before. Put yourselves in their sandals. Do you think they may have felt like shouting? Hope is the inner strength that keeps us going. Picture it as the batteries that keep the corny little rabbit in the commercial going. Hope is expectation. I remember when we decided to buy our first house. Right after we signed the papers, we would go see it everyday to check on the progress of it's finishing touches. We could hardly wait to move in. The same thing happened years later when they added to it and later remodeled it. Each day after work, I would walk through it to check on the progress. I had the same feeling when we built our new church. To be quite honest, I felt more excited during the work process than when it was actually completed. Please don't misunderstand me. I was very pleased with the finished product. I'm just trying to describe the feeling of excitement and anticipation I felt on those occasions. Perhaps that's what the songwriter had in mind when she wrote: "anticipation, anticipation, is making me late, is keeping me waiting." Our hope in Christ is greater. It helps us to patiently wait upon the Lord. Perhaps we can now better understand what Paul meant when he wrote in Philippians 1:23 that he was in a strait between two yearning desires; to stay here or to be with Christ, which he added, would be far better. Christ's resurrection is our hope. And hope keeps us going and heightens our anticipation. It makes us wait excitedly to see what each new day has in store for us.