By Dhimas Anugrah
What is the greatest price you’ve ever paid to follow Christ?
That question takes me back to a modest rented house many years ago. It was there that a woman made the most important decision of her life—to follow Jesus. The consequences were immense: she lost the marriage that had long been her source of security and support.
That night, with trembling hands, she locked the door from the inside. Her husband would no longer be coming home. The only ones she saw were her two young children, fast asleep on a thin mattress. Tomorrow lay before her like a thick fog; no money to pay the rent, and all the ease and comfort she had once known were gone. Yet she chose to place her hope in the God who holds tomorrow.
The fact that this woman saw her life changed in a heartbeat reveals the quiet side of a virtue we often talk about but find difficult to live out: hope. When circumstances urge us to give up, where do we find the strength to keep moving forward?
The Jewish psychiatrist Viktor Frankl experienced a season when survival itself seemed impossible. Imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp, he witnessed unspeakable suffering and horror. Yet amid it all, he observed a remarkable pattern: those who endured were not necessarily the physically strongest, but those who continued to nurture hope within their souls. Frankl became convinced that hope gives people the strength to keep going—even when giving up seemed to be the most rational choice.
Despair and hopelessness are not limited to those caught in war or devastating loss; in fact, almost everyone goes through seasons when the future feels uncertain, prayers seem to go unanswered, or no way forward is in sight. It is in these moments the most fundamental question arises: What does it really mean to hope? Is hope simply the ability to think positively that things will eventually get better, or does it rest on something far more secure—even when life is doggedly moving in the opposite direction?
Frankl’s observations reveal just how powerful hope can be in human life. However, the Bible invites us to ask an even more fundamental question. If hope is so essential, where does true hope come from? What enables believers to keep hoping when circumstances remain unchanged, prayers seem unanswered, and suffering continues? To find the answer, we need to understand how the Bible defines hope.
One of the clearest pictures of biblical hope is found in the life of the early church. They lived under the constant shadow of pressure, rejection, and severe persecution.They had countless exact reasons to give in to fear. Yet history tells a very different story; they instead became living witnesses to how hope in Christ remains active even when life’s circumstances are anything but favorable.
What was the secret behind such steadfastness?
The experience of the early church is especially significant because they were the generation closest to Christ’s ministry, death, and resurrection. The hope they lived by was not a product of philosophical speculation or a tradition that developed centuries later. It flowed directly from the testimony of those who had witnessed the risen Christ with their own eyes. Through their daily lives—marked by rejection, imprisonment, and even martyrdom—we see how the hope taught in Scripture takes tangible form in a broken world. For them, hoping in God was never an escape mechanism or a guarantee that life would become easier. Rather, it was the courage to cling to God’s promises in the midst of suffering.
This radical confidence rested on one history-changing event: the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Because Jesus rose from the dead and lives, the early church believed that sin, suffering, and death were not the end of their story. That is why the Apostle Peter declares that God “has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3, NIV).
In the New Testament, the Greek word for hope—elpis—does not refer to wishful thinking or a mere “hopefully.” Rather, it describes a confident and certain expectation that God will fulfill His promises. Christian hope, therefore, is not built on the possibility that tomorrow’s circumstances may improve, but on the certainty that God has already acted through Christ. It is no surprise, then, that the writer of Hebrews calls this hope “an anchor for the soul, firm and secure” (Hebrews 6:19). Just as an anchor keeps a ship steady through the storm, hope steadies our hearts so they will not be overwhelmed when trials arise.
This is the defining line between Christian hope and ordinary optimism. Human optimism depends on circumstances and says, “I hope things get better soon.” The hope of faith, however, rests on the character of God and boldly declares, “Whatever happens, God remains faithful to fulfill every one of His promises” (Psalm 25:10; 73:26; Habakkuk 3:17). That is why the Apostle Paul calls Him “the God of hope” (Romans 15:13).
The early church may not have known how their trials would end, but they knew intimately the One who held the future. While the world saw the cross as a symbol of shameful defeat, they saw the cross and the empty tomb as the dawn of a new creation. From that conviction came the strength that has sustained believers from their day to ours.
The hope born from Christ’s resurrection did not remain a historical event confined to the past. It continues to move through the centuries, shaping the lives of believers generation after generation. Christian hope is concerned not only with where it comes from, but also with how it transforms the way we live today.
Centuries later, this same reality was embodied in the life of Jürgen Moltmann. After enduring the devastation of the Second World War and spending time as a prisoner of war, Moltmann came to recognize a crucial truth: human beings cannot endure without hope. In his landmark work Theology of Hope, he writes:
“Christian faith lives from the raising of the crucified Christ, and strains after the promises of the universal future of Christ” (Moltmann, 1967, p. 16).
In other words, Christian faith draws its life from the resurrection of the crucified Christ and presses forward toward the future He has promised.
For Moltmann, Christ’s resurrection was never a static doctrine from the distant past. It is the dawn of God’s future breaking into the present, empowering us to keep loving when love is not returned, to keep forgiving when our hearts have been wounded, to keep serving when our efforts go unnoticed, and to remain faithful even when the results are still unseen.
Keep Moving Forward in Hope
The same kind of radical hope was quietly present in the modest rented house I described at the beginning.
Many years later, the decision of faith made by that trembling mother who locked the door that night bore fruit beyond anything she could have imagined. Her two children grew up in the faith. One became an educator, and the other… is me, the person writing the article you are reading now. Even more remarkable, two weeks before my father passed away, he opened his heart and received Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.
My mother’s story has become living proof to me that hope in Christ does not promise the immediate disappearance of suffering. Instead, it works by giving us the strength to keep moving forward through the storm until God completes His beautiful work.
Perhaps your circumstances have not changed yet. Perhaps the prayers you have offered through tears still seem unanswered. Yet the anchor of faith that sustained the early church, the prison cell that shaped Moltmann, and the lonely nights in my mother’s rented house together offer us a glimpse of a profound reality: our hope has never rested on circumstances, but on the risen Christ.
Because Christ lives, we always have reason to keep moving forward, to remain faithful, and to keep hoping. For He who promised is faithful (Hebrews 10:23).
Watch Also:
LIFE NOT GOING AS PLANNED? LET’S EXPLORE HOW GOD WORKS FOR HIS PEOPLE!
You’ve made a neat plan, but suddenly life takes a turn you never expected. For example: you’re tired of studying major ‘A’, yet you end up working in field ‘Z’.
We often think the ideal life should be straightforward. But, as one pastor said, “Life is not a straight line. A normal life is actually full of plot twists!” It’s true. Life is full of mysteries, and that’s often where God works most powerfully.
So, if you’re feeling lost or unsure about where your life is heading … this isn’t the end of your story! It might just be the beginning of God’s extraordinary plot twist. Are you ready to follow His lead?
Tune in to Podcast KaMu (in Indonesian) with Ps. Raguel Lewi and Blessdy Clementine to find out more!
Our Daily Bread Ministries in Indonesia is supported by the freewill offering of individuals in Indonesia, who through their gifts enable us to continue to bring the life-changing wisdom of the Bible to many here. We are not funded by any church or organization.
