Free Hope for Your Heart: Finding Strength in Life's Storms by June Hunt

experience.
    The following night a group of close friends gathered at my house to pray for me. These precious people all came to pray for
me
. That had never happened before. It had always been me going with a group of people to pray for someone else in crisis. Now the roles were reversed. Another surreal moment.

HOPE IN THE MIDST OF MORE AFFLICTION
    The next day, while waiting at the airport for my flight to Baltimore, my doctor called to tell me that not only did I have cancer in one breast, I had an even more aggressive type of cancer in the other one. It couldn’t be felt because it was growing toward the chest wall. A third surreal moment.
    From Baltimore I went on to the New York City conference. I was there to train pastors, counselors, and other caregivers on how to respond to those suffering the emotional and spiritual aftershocks of the terrorist attacks. I was both grateful and humbled by the opportunity and glad I had kept the commitment.
    Besides feeling that I was doing my part to help and serve, I was clearly moved and motivated by the faith, hope, and love I found in the sad faces and broken hearts of those attending the conference.
    And I was reminded once again of the ways God helps us through adversity and affliction. They were resources I would draw upon again and again through the long months of chemotherapy and recovery following surgery. It was a grueling ordeal, to be sure, but hope kept me anchored.

ARE FAITH AND HOPE THE SAME THING?
    In dealing with cancer, in submitting to God’s perfect will that allowed such an occurrence in my life, there were two things I needed to exercise—faith and hope. Sometimes two words are so intertwined that it is difficult to distinguish their meanings. Such is the case with faith and hope.
    Although the two concepts overlap in many ways, the Bible does differentiate between them. We know they are different, for instance, because Paul uses them in a sequence: “Now these three remain: faith, hope and love” (1 Cor. 13:13).

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN FAITH AND HOPE
    Hope is based on an assured promise, whereas faith is acting on that promise. Faith is hope put into action. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, picture in your mind a ship anchored in the water.

The water represents the sea of people and circumstances you encounter in this life.
The ship in the water represents you as a believer safely navigating through life.
The anchor in the water represents the guaranteed hope that Christ will hold you secure to keep you from drifting dangerously off course. Realize, when the anchor is at work, you won’t see it!
The rode is a strong chain with one end connected to the ship and the other to the anchor. In fact, the anchor holds strong and secure with a scope ratio of five to seven times farther away than the depth of the water. The rode connected to the anchor represents your faith in action . . . acting in faith that Christ will hold you secure. The act of anchoring (dropping the anchor and chain into the water) is based on the guaranteed hope that the anchor will hold.

    Having hope that we can be secure is necessary for us to take the action needed to be made secure. Acting in faith is necessary so that hope is not an empty, lifeless concept but rather a living hope based upon the guaranteed promises of God, leading us to experience an anchored life.
In physical life . . .

Our hope for sustaining physical life resides in believing in the benefit of food (accepting that eating food is necessary to stay alive).
Our faith is exercised when we actually eat food for sustenance.
If we have no hope in the merit of food, we will not eat and will prematurely die.

In spiritual life . . .

Our hope in Jesus is based on the promise of God the Father that God the Son would be the Savior of the world; thus our hope is Jesus. By faith we receive Jesus into our hearts and lives; therefore, faith is the means by which we actually receive our hope.
Our hope in Jesus prompts