I am almost giddy with joy. 

Baseball is beginning!  Major league players are reporting to their spring training facilities, and practices are under way.  Games will follow soon.  Along with the amount of daylight increasing daily and the daffodils stretching from the ground, baseball is one of the wonderful harbingers of Spring. 

When “the boys of Summer” report for duty, it’s a sure sign Summer isn’t far away!

And after the last year, who of us isn’t ready for some fun in the sun?  Some enjoyable distractions on the ballfield; the sounds, sights and smells of a ballgame; some social gatherings at the ballpark?  (Well, hopefully anyway!)

On top of just the exaltation that baseball is back – and it seems it’s back for a full season this go-round – there is the added excitement that this is the year my favorite team, the Seattle Mariners, are going to win our American League West division!

At which any of you who are even a little informed about the Seattle Mariners are probably rolling your eyes, shaking your heads, and possibly even guffawing out loud.  The Mariners have the distinct dishonor of being the only MLB team that has never even played in the World Series.  The only one!  In addition, they currently own the longest playoff drought of any major professional team.  Not just the longest drought in baseball, but the longest drought of any team in MLB, the NFL, the NBA, or the NHL!

Consequently some (most? all?) will take exception to my prediction of the Mariners winning their division and breaking their playoff absence.  To which I reply with the aged and sage proverb, “Hope springs eternal!” 

And nowhere is that expression more true than in regard to one’s favorite baseball team!  (Especially if one’s favorite team happens to be the Mariners!)

“Hope springs eternal” is actually an abbreviation of a line written by Alexander Pope in “An Essay on Man” in 1732.  The entire phrase was originally “Hope springs eternal in the human breast.”

The concept, of course, is that humans long for, search for and even manufacture hope.  We need it, want it, and have to have it.  Our tendency is always to somehow, somewhere, in some way uncover some kind of hope.  We will cling tenaciously to hope against all odds because existence without hope is a shallow existence.

Unfortunately, this sin-shattered world excels at undermining hope.  Perhaps that’s why we are so desperately and constantly seeking a semblance of hope?  We recognize that hope tends to be frail, finicky and fleeting.

Which is why, I’m convinced, the Bible speaks so adamantly and repeatedly about hope.  Not about the uncertain hope this world offers, but rather about the certain, immovable, unchangeable, persevering, everlasting, rock-solid, count-on-it-no-matter-what hope that God gives.

If God says it, God must do it.  If God makes a promise, God must keep it.  If God offers words of hope, he must stand behind them.  Which makes the hopes that God gives us absolutely reliable.

The list of God’s hope-giving promises is long!  His assurances encompass his love for us, his redemption accomplished for us, his daily care of us, and his eternal reward for us.  And so much more!

 “Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope” (Romans 15:4).  To which the writer to the Hebrews adds this encouragement, “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful” (Hebrews 10:23).

Wherever the Bible addresses the hope that God gives us, we should add the word “certain” to it.  Not because it sounds more encouraging that way, but because it’s true! 

Let’s try it and see what that sounds like.

“We wait in (certain!) hope for the LORD; he is our help and our shield.  In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. May your unfailing love be with us, LORD, even as we put our (certain!) hope in you” (Psalm 33:20-22).

Now that’s a (certain!) hope that truly springs eternal!