“Isabelle would think of me in the present tense [I thought].  She was incorrigible when it came to hope.”

It’s a line from the book I’m currently editing (shared with permission).  The narrator is “presumed dead,” but she knows her friend won’t give up hope just because of an assumption.  “Isabelle” is “incorrigible” in hope.

To be “incorrigible” means that someone is, “impossible to reprove or correct.”  In other words, this woman named Isabelle refuses to have her hope corrected.  She’ll keep on hoping even in the face of others’ hopelessness or the lack of current evidence that her hope is well-founded.

Jesus is our hope (1 Timothy 1:1) – and since He never fails, we, too, can have “incorrigible hope.”  It’s the kind of hope that clings in faith of what God has said, the kind that believes even in the face of conflicting evidence, the kind that sees beyond the current struggle to the good ending that God has in store for us.

Yet due to our own disappointments – or possibly just looking at what’s in front of us instead of what God has given us faith to expect is coming – we don’t always think very hopeful thoughts.  Turn those over in our minds long enough, and we’ll lose hope for our situations, our lives, and our loved ones.

So how can we cultivate incorrigible hope in our lives?  Here are a few ways:

1. Remember what God has spoken to you and what He has done in the past.  Israel always fell into discontent, grumbling, and hopelessness whenever they forgot the works of the Lord (Exodus 14:10-12, Deuteronomy 4:9, etc.).
2. Train your mind to dwell on what God has done and has promised rather than on the negatives in a situation.  It can be easy to see something that contradicts what God has said and immediately begin to doubt.  After all, we’re trained from childhood to believe the evidence.  But faith – and hope – looks at a situation and says, “I see this and it doesn’t line up with what I know is true.  But I still believe the truth!”  (Quick example: Just because Mt. Rainier is socked in with clouds doesn’t mean the mountain is any less there; it’s just that you can’t see it right now.)
3. Fanaticize about the good things that God has promised you.  Doing this with the Holy Spirit is truly fun and faith-building.  Imagining with God about His work in your life and what He is going to do will build your hope and faith and help you to envision situations beyond the one you’re in right now.  That doesn’t mean that it will look exactly like you’re thinking, but it still builds hope that can’t be shaken.
4. Read about the things that God did in the Bible.  Sometimes we glaze over a little because we’ve read about the miracles of Scripture so many times.  But look at things like the crossing of the Red Sea, the healing of people in the Gospels, or the descriptions of heaven in Revelation.  They’re mind-blowing, if you think about it!
5. Be quick to obey God when He tells you to move.  Someone told me, “Inactivity breaks the spirit of faith.”  In other words, if you don’t move when God says to, then your hope and faith will die as you stand, immobilized.  It may not me comfortable to move, but our faith is built as we walk with God, not while we wait to see the entire plan before moving.

I hope these strategies help you to build incorrigible hope – and a faith that can’t be shaken.  “For as many as are the promises of God, in Christ they are all answered, “Yes.”  So through Him we say our “Amen” to the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:20)