Keep Your Hope Alive!

Ronald Bainbridge
Dec 31, 2025
4 min read

Updated: Jan 9

Friends, the purpose of Discovering A BETTER LIFE MINISTRIES is to provide men and women with words of Encouragement and Hope, as well as empower believers in Jesus Christ around the world, to recognise, experience, and celebrate their oneness with all others who know Jesus as Saviour and Lord, regardless of denomination, church fellowship, or historic tradition.

https://abl-alb.wixsite.com/discoverabetterlife

(Stories of: Real People, Real Events, Real Places)

(Ron Bainbridge, Editor)

And are dedicated to HELPING

PEOPLE FIND SALVATION, PEACE and HOPE

Through entering a genuine

Relationship with Jesus Christ,

Who has declared,

“In this world you will have trouble,

But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

(John 10:10; 14:1-6)

(16:33; Acts 2:36-47)

TODAY’S MESSAGE OF:

ENCOURAGEMENT & HOPE

Keep

Your

HOPE

Alive!

To hear this Podcast

Presented by Ron Bainbridge

On Albany Community Radio

https://www.greatsouthernfm.com/

Please click on the Link below:

https://a-better-life-ministries.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/Discovering_a_Better_Life/014_Where_Trouble_cannot_Hurt_You.mp3

Friends, as we enter the new year of 2026, I’d like to encourage each of you, no matter how difficult last year may have been, to keep your Hope alive. And the reason I say this is because Hope is a gift waiting for all who have—a powerful wish for life to be better than it is, the imagination to look beyond the bad that is to the good that can be, and the faith to believe that the good they imagine and wish for is possible.

Hope is an amazing, God-given gift. It fuels your dreams, lightens your spirits, and lifts your despair. And when your life becomes a battlefield, Hope digs in and fights the good fight.

To help you understand what I’ve just said, let me take your mind back to one early evening as the dusk darkened the always-shadowed Sistine Chapel, when Michelangelo, weary, sore, and doubtful, climbed down the ladder from his scaffolding where he’d been lying on his back since dawn painting the chapel ceiling. After eating dinner alone, he wrote a sonnet to his aching body. The last line was “… I am no painter!”

However, when the sun shone again, Michelangelo got up from his bed, climbed back up on his scaffold, and laboured another day on his magnificent vision of the Creator at work on His brand-new world. What pushed him up the ladder? Could it have been anything but a Hope born again from a night’s rest, a Hope just strong enough to keep the doubts in check for another day, a Hope that became the energy to paint his greatest picture of all he had done?

Hope – what promise that word holds! From prompting Michelangelo to pick up his paintbrush to energising you and me to stand strong during the struggle, Hope is God’s life-giving gift to each of us.

During the Cold War in Czechoslovakia, Vaclav Havel spent half of his days in jail and the other half at a menial job in a state brewery. All the while, however, he was the poet of Hope for the Czech people.

Finally, the wall came down. Czechoslovakia became a free republic, and Havel became its first president. Later, he was asked how he had managed to persevere during those decades of despair. “I’m not an optimist,” he said, “I am a person of Hope. ... I cannot imagine that I would strive for anything if I did not carry Hope in me!”

Yes, the power to strive! However, Hope also gives people the power to endure. “How come,” asks Jewish philosopher Emil Fackenheim, “Jews are still around after thousands of years, most of them in exile, often persecuted, and sometimes all but annihilated? “There is only one answer,” he insists, “and that answer is Hope!”

Friend, as mentioned earlier, as you enter this year of 2026, I encourage each of you to remember, “... Hope is the energy to strive for what we Hope for. And we keep striving as long as we keep Hoping. If you lose Hope, you lose desire, you lose your dream, you lose your faith, and you lose your inner power to strive for the better future you can imagine but cannot control.” Therefore, no matter what life brings to you this year, my friend, I encourage you to remember that God’s Hope, Promises, and Comfort can sustain you. Therefore, I encourage you to keep your Hope alive!

Friend, our encouragement for you today is to persevere and complete the race of life, no matter what obstacles lie in your way. We encourage you to face the future with courage and optimism—because: TOMORROW CAN BE BETTER!

If you are in any doubt about what we have shared with you today, we invite you to write to Discovering A BETTER LIFE and request two FREE booklets titled “TOMORROW CAN BE BETTER!” and “When Life Lets You Down!”

Friend, these two informative booklets describe how your life can be changed. It can be different. The future doesn’t have to be like the past. Tomorrow Can be Better! For your copy of these life-changing booklets, write to:

Discovering A BETTER LIFE

Unit 49/2 Plantation Street,

Western Australia 6050

Or email us at: abl-alb@omninet.net.au

Until we share another message of encouragement with you, may our loving God lift you on eagle’s wings and provide you with His Peace, Wisdom, and Love--(Psalm 91:4; Isaiah 40:27-31)