Hope Leads to Action Which Leads to Joy

Hope is not a plan. Hope is a guide to action. Action is the means to joy.

That seems like a long approach to the end result, why am I not just able to walk into joy without all the extra like hope and then action.

“²⁸The hope of the righteous brings joy,

but the expectation of the wicked will perish.”

— Proverbs 10:28 (ESV)

It is the second part of the above verse that I have to remember when I begin to think of getting to the end without the work. When I begin to expect things to happen quickly or without any work or other action, I will find myself in the mindset of the wicked. Things that are worth having all take work and that work is action and not just thinking about it. Hope is not a plan.

Napoleon Hill wrote the book, “Think and Grow Rich”. Without reading the book, one might think that all you have to do is think about something and you will bring it into existence. Well to some degree that may be true, because everything that done that is worth something has to be thought about first, before action is taken. There has to be a commitment to the thing fully and wholly.

I can think of what I would like to happen, hope, yet that does not make the thing happen. I can think about getting a new car, but at some point I have to take action to get the car. I cannot just think it into existence. Hope works the same. I can have all of the hope available, yet without action, it is only a mental exercise. I have to use that hope to guide me into taking action and working toward the accomplishment just to the end. It is action that comes from the direction of the hope that leads to the end result.

I have the light of the LORD and the truth of the LORD that provides for and keeps me on the path to joy. It is the hope of reaching the joy of the LORD that gets me on the path in the first place. Without hope, I have no direction to even travel. I will simply wander around in the dark searching. I have to use the hope of the LORD to get me to the path. I then have to take action and move along the path remembering the hope that got me here and using the light of the LORD to see where to continue my journey. I will use the truth of the LORD to keep me on the path as I move toward the joy of the LORD. But all of that begins with the hope of the LORD and using that hope to lead to action as I seek the joy of the LORD.

What are your expectations as regards joy of the LORD? Are you hoping for the joy of the LORD and not working to make it happen? What if you were to have hope that would guide your actions to reach the joy of the LORD?