Practice

Reading and studying the Bible is preparation. When you close your Bible and walk out the door, practice starts. You control what you put into your head. God controls what goes into your life. Things are going to happen that are going to give you opportunity to learn to lean on the God of those promises.

The foundation for an unshakable hope is sure, but faith and trust to lean on that foundation in hope is something you learn to do as you walk with God through your life. In that sense, you don’t just get hope, hope is grown. You strengthen hope by being in places with God where your hope in Him is pushed and stretched. Romans 5:3-5 (ESV) says, “More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

When you read the Bible, you read about how God came through for others. When you live in the hope of Christ you experience God coming through on those promises for you.