I am almost giddy with joy.

Baseball is beginning!  Major league players have reported to their spring training facilities and practices are under way.  Already the first games are being played and broadcast.  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 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?

On top of just the exultation that baseball is back, there is the added excitement that this year my favorite two teams, the Seattle Mariners and the Detroit Tigers, are both going to make it into the playoffs!

At which any of you who are a little informed about either team might be rolling your eyes, shaking your heads, and possibly even guffawing out loud.  Neither team has exactly overwhelmed recently, though the Mariners have done better than the Tigers.  But the Seattle team plays in a tough division – the division that has produced the past two World Series winners.

Consequently some (many?) will take exception to my prediction of the Mariners and Tigers advancing to the playoffs.  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 perhaps if one’s favorite team happens to be either the Mariners or Tigers!)

But those who are a little more than just a little informed recognize that both teams have potentially excellent pitching, some solid experienced players, and a host of young players with tons of talent.  Furthermore, the Tigers play in a weak division.

So there is definitely hope!

“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 only 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!