Hope

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Romans 12:12

It feels like all my devotions are written based on my favorite bible verses, but maybe that is how it is supposed to be. This verse has always resounded in me, but lately I have been using it a LOT. One of our prohibited words at work is hope. On projects, and especially as project managers my team is asked to have a specific and distinct plan and not “hope” that something will be accomplished by a certain date.

Webster’s defines hope as a feeling of expectation, desire or trust. When I am working on a project I feel a swell of hope and it certainly brings me a sensation of joy. I am excited for the project laid out ahead of us. I know that I have to put a strong sense of trust in my team that they will dedicate their time, energy and expertise into meeting the timelines for our organization. For me, hope has been hard to remove from my personality and my expressions. We have been asked to instead use the word “expect”. I expect a task to be complete by Friday, or I expect to have an answer from a vendor no later than end of day on Tuesday. In turn, I am expected to know what I will do if my expectations are not met. 

As you may imagine, this absence of hope requires me to be patient in my affliction. When working with people to improve technology, there are times that a timeline isn’t met, there are emergencies or broken systems, or times with software that something won’t work, because in so many ways a computer can never replace a person. 

Finally, I must be faithful in prayer and my conversations with God. It can be so easy to get distracted from my faith, to become frustrated with unmet deadlines, incomplete tasks and my ever present to do list. When I take time to step back and ask for God to be with me in a struggle, to give me patience or to help me to understand a better way to handle or manage a problem I always feel better….even if I don’t have a solution. That time can be 2 minutes of silent prayer at my desk, a quick plea to God in the stairwell, reading a scripture in the morning while I get ready for a particularly hard day, or a good recharge sitting in church on a Sunday morning. If I miss that time and don’t ask for guidance I know that I am missing Joy, Hope and Patience. 

Prayer: God who is always with us, help me to feel the joy of hope, even when I’m not supposed to – it helps me to remain positive.  Please continue to share your wisdom in times of affliction, the day to day, the life changing  and the world changing. Thank you for always being there when I need to talk, for comforting me, for giving guidance and for waiting, even when I think I’m too busy. Amen. 

Christi Moock