BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

and love are brought to bear on them. When I first began to understand how hope works, I was a 30-year-old student at Oral Roberts University. I had been out of school 13 years and I was really struggling. I had flunked algebra in high school. (As a kid, I never could figure out why anyone would want to put parentheses around a bunch of numbers. It made no sense to me, so I just didn't pay any attention to it.) Now, there I was facing a college algebra professor. He said, "Good morning," on the first day and that was the last thing he said that I could understand. Naturally speaking, the situation looked hopeless. But I went to the library and checked out a high school algebra book to help me. I would study 15 or 20 minutes when suddenly my brain would freeze up. It would just quit on me as if the circuits were overloaded. At first I didn't know what to do. Then I discovered I could pray in the spirit and get my brain going again. I'd walk around the room praying in other tongues until my brain began to relax. I'd sit down and study for another 15 minutes or so until my brain would stall again. Then I'd get up and pray in the spirit and it would break loose every time. I did that over and over again. Finally, I progressed to the point where I could study 30 minutes, then 45, then an hour. Eventually I could study all night long if I wanted and still be just as refreshed mentally as when I started. Do you know what saw me through that situation? Faith and hope! Hope painted a picture inside me with The WORD of God. Hope told me that no matter how impossible algebra might seem to me, I could understand it because I had the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16). Hope enabled me to see myself studying and understanding without freezing up, to see myself on the other side of the barriers. That's what I didn't have in high school. That's what kept me going. I'd see that picture in my imagination and I'd get up and pray in the spirit until another piece of the puzzle came through. Lay Hold of Hope Do you see now how to put the process of hope to work? It's not easy. It's not something you can work on for a minute or two and ignore the rest of the time. That's why the Bible says to "lay hold upon the hope" (Hebrews 6:18). To lay hold means to "sink your spiritual teeth into something and to refuse to let go, knowing it's working—regardless of how you feel, regardless of what the circumstances look like, regardless of what the devil (or anyone else!) says." You have to be diligent. Verses 11-12 say, "We desire that every one of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end: that ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises." If you want hope to work for you, you're going to have to practice it continually. You can't do it in spurts. You can't wait until your life is falling apart and then jump up suddenly and get full of hope in about two hours. No, this is something you do all day, every day. You build your hope continually. Then, when the devil brings bad feelings and pressures you to tear down your hope with words of despair, you refuse to give in to that pressure. Refuse to allow your feelings to dictate your conversation—and make no exceptions at any time! That's diligence. It's the di¢erence between military life and civilian life. When you're on the battlefield you had better be diligent. You B V O V : 7 " Faith, hope and love need one another.... They abide together because they need each other's assistance to carry out what they are designed to do.

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