Turn Hope into Faith

“We have seen too much defeatism, too much pessimism, too much of a negative approach. The answer is simple: if you want something very badly, you can achieve it. It may take patience, very hard work, a real struggle, and a long time; but it can be done. That much faith is a prerequisite of any undertaking.”

—Margo Jones

faith /fāTH/ noun

1. complete trust or confidence in someone or something.

On the phone, my friend said, “I’m just disappointed that I got so hopeful.”

At the time, I couldn’t quite relate. I have been disappointed in myself plenty—regretful, resentful, angry, almost always turned inward. But I had never felt disappointment over being hopeful. Hope, to me, had always felt like a virtue, or at least a harmless survival instinct. Something necessary to wake up tomorrow.

Her comment stayed with me for the rest of the day and sent me into a quiet meditation on hope itself—specifically, on how much I enjoy being hopeful, and how much I value being seen that way. A few years ago, in a moment of questionable judgment, I recorded myself reading aloud from my journals and sent the audio to a girl I barely knew. I remember apologizing, worried that I sounded too negative. She told me I didn’t sound negative at all. I sounded hopeful. She said it felt like, at my core, I was hopeful in every situation.

Hearing this gave me a deep, private satisfaction. I continued to repeat it to myself often: At my core, I am hopeful in every situation.

Even in situations where no rational person would have held out hope, I did. I clung to it stubbornly, convinced that optimism itself was a kind of moral strength.

Lately, though, I have begun to feel disappointed in hope itself. I’m not sure if this is what my friend meant that Friday afternoon, but hope now feels insufficient—too soft, too passive. It waits. It wishes. It leaves room. Hope holds space for a “no” it pretends not to secretly expect.

I have hoped for many things, and some of them came to pass. But lately, hope has also left me feeling stuck, like struggling in quicksand: the harder I hope, the deeper I sink. It feels as though hope has worn out its welcome, and I need to transform it into something more substantial——something with weight and consequence. Like water turned into wine. Like cream skimmed from milk, churned into butter, and spread thickly on bread. 

Something with weight and consequence. Something that acts rather than waits. Something like faith.

I am not religious, but religion speaks often of faith, and faith seems to be hope sharpened into a blade. Fortified hope.  Hope without contingency. Belief without hesitation. An insistence rather than a wish. Certainty. In this sense, faith becomes almost coercive toward reality itself. Make-it-so manifestation.

Consider the difference in language. You tell someone you are going to do something, and they respond, “I hope you do.” Now imagine they say instead, “I have faith you will.” The first allows for failure; the second pushes it away.

Hope, it seems, carries a quiet admission of doubt. We hope for the best, but somewhere beneath that hope is the suspicion that the best may not arrive. Faith, by contrast, insists on assured belief even in the absence of evidence.  

I don’t want to doubt. Even if belief makes me foolish. Regardless of if the thing I put my faith in never comes to pass. I want to believe fully, with the conviction of the most faithful pilgrim—certain, unwavering, and unashamed—and to live as though that belief requires something of me in return.

As the Bible says, "Faith without works is dead" sounds an awful lot like "Faith without work is just hope."