There is a single ingredient that I believe makes all the difference in whether your marriage makes it, you recover your health, your wealth or anything else you’ve lost.  It’s the factor that can separate a champion from a player, a winner from a loser, or an excuser from a finisher.  It’s hope.

Hope is something that when you have it, nothing can keep you back.  You cannot be derailed, detoured, or destroyed.  It’s that component that keeps you going when all the others are panting by the side of the road. 

Trouble is, many don’t have it.  They’ve given into self-pity, bad news, negative reports and allowed themselves to believe it can’t be done. 

In Zechariah 9:12 it refers to those who are “prisoners of hope.”  Wow, what a great title to have.  Wouldn’t that be great to be said at your funeral, “They were a prisoner of hope, they just wouldn’t give up.”? 

You can be a prisoner of an awful childhood, poor parenting, bad economy, negative medical reports, dire work conditions, or other horrible conditions, but I want to be known as a “prisoner of hope.”

Being hopeful will do more to turn around your circumstances than anything else I know.  It just recently healed a young girl, nine years old, in our church of cancer.  What could it do for you?