The Rejoicing of Hope

’ Sing aloud unto God our strength: make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob. Take a psalm, and bring hither the timbrel, the pleasant harp with the psaltery. Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, in the time appointed, on our solemn feast day. For this was a statute for Israel, and a law of the God of Jacob. This He ordained in Joseph for a testimony, when he went out through the land of Egypt: where I heard a language that I understood not. (Psalm 81: 1-5) This scripture states the principle of rejoicing of hope as the testimony of Jacob’s success. It also states it as a statute and law that was entrusted to Isaac and Jacob. The key to the successful application of this statute was that it was to be applied regardless of the circumstances. The law was to be obeyed regardless of people cheating Isaac of his wells or Jacob of his wages. Their steadfastness in hope and their praise of God was the key to turning their contrary situations into testimonies. This statute was kept by Joseph when he was sold into slavery by his brothers, lied upon in Potiphars’ house and when he was forgotten in prison. The Scriptures instructed that this statute must be obeyed regardless of the series of disappointments they faced in their life. Rejoicing and praising helps re-align focus back to God and the hope that they had. This is because disappointments means that affected individuals have placed that hope in people, structures and in other things apart from God. In fact, individuals never operate in genuine faith until all their human projections and support systems have been dashed i.e. until sense and sight have failed them. Thus, it can be said that these circumstances help in purifying the hope we have. If we do not let go of our expectation in the midst of those situations, we will eventually obtain the substance of the hope that we persistently hold on to. This statute of rejoicing in our God-given hope was restated by Paul in Hebrews 3:6… But Christ as a son over his own house whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. The rejoicing of our hope is to be practiced regardless of the seeming detours that we experience as we journey through life. We are to remain confident of the fact that these detours cannot alter our God-ordained destinies, rather they might rid us of our human expectations and self designed systems but they can never alter our hope and calling in God. This hope, in itself, is an assurance (or a guarantee) of the territory that God has earmarked for each believer. It keeps you assured of your fixed position in Christ. Like the anchor that keeps a ship firmly secure in the captain’s desired position, your hope will not let you drift away from the territory that God has apportioned to you in life.

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