Let’s face it, life can be hard sometimes, and our dreams can often be lost and pushed aside in the midst of its chaos.  When we were kids, it was easy to dream and see our futures as ones that had impossible endings.  But as time passed, and crises came our way, our hearts sadly become conditioned to expect failure, disappointment and difficulty.  However, God is bigger then anything life can throw at us, and He is able to restore the dreams of our youth, regardless of what or where your life might be right now.

Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  Have you ever let this scripture sink-in?  What does it mean, “The substance of things HOPED for?”  We often treat hope like a bad word in the church.  As if to say if we are in hope then we must not be in faith. Yet the writer of Hebrews makes a direct connection between the two. Paul tells us that hope is one of the three characteristics, along with faith and love, that should be an empowering force in the life of the believer. The Greek defines hope as, “a confident expectation.” That is far different then how most of us think of that word today. We say things like, “don’t get your hopes up, I wouldn’t want you to be disappointed.”  It has almost taken on a bad connotation in our language today.  .

Go back to your childhood, if you can for a moment. Do you remember daydreaming in school? Do you recall how easy it was to imagine what you wanted your life to be?  Of course what you might have imagined at that time was probably in the scope of what a kid would consider important. Those dreams are vastly different then what you value today. Regardless, we were able to dream! Life’s circumstances had not yet convinced us we could not imagine the future we wanted, or that we could not have what we could imagine.

In our youth, we had yet to feel disappointment stealing our ability to dream.  At the very core of what hope is, is our ability to dream. If we are not able to hope for what could be, than there is no basis to have faith for it to come to pass.  There is the connection between hope and faith. One without the other is like having hydrogen without oxygen, and trying to get water.  Faith, without the establishment of hope, makes it impossible to produce God results.

You might ask, what does this have to do with leaving a legacy? To understand that, look at the words of Paul. “The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.” (Ephesians 1:17)  Think about this. Jesus had a hope when he went to the cross to die for you and me, that we would be the inheritance of that sacrifice.  Not only would we be the inheritance of that hope by believing on Him, but also we would be the inheritance of that hope by being His ambassadors in the earth. We would take this message to the world.  Remember Paul wrote, “That Christ in you is the hope of Glory.” It has always been God’s intention to put his Spirit in us, flow through us, and empower and enable us. Thus, we would fulfill His hope to get the gospel to every person. You are His inheritance.

The scripture tells us when we delight ourselves in the Lord, He will give us the desires of our hearts. (Psalms 37:4)  In other words, when we are seeking him, the desires he wants for our lives will become the dreams of our hearts.  He is the one who establishes those dreams and our spiritual legacy will be established by those dreams coming to fruition. Here is how it all comes together. If our hearts our established in delighting ourselves in him first, then we can trust the desires we find in our hearts. So, we can start dreaming again. If He is the one who put those desires there, then we can also have faith that those dreams shall come to past.

Do you see it?  Faith is the substance of things hoped for.  I encourage you today to seek Him. Allow His desires for your life to take root in your heart, and start dreaming again.  As you do, your spiritual legacy will be established in the earth, and your life will impact many with the gospel. Your influence will be beyond what you could ever imagine.  God chose to need you and flow through you! You are His inheritance to establish His kingdom in the earth.  You are His hope!