Why are some people full of hope, while many of us struggle to get past the snooze alarm?Hope often seems elusive—both to explain and to experience. So we find ourselves instead clinging to lesser substitutes. From self-medication to lazy clichés,we apply these balms to our pain and experience little to no comfort. But we know, in our guts, that these replacements aren?t the hope-filled lives we long for, the lives we were made for.Mark Oestreicher gets it. Through hard-wrought experience and robust-bordering-on-desperate theological reflection, he offers here a fresh perspective on Hope, that virtue that God carries to us even as God carries us. Read Hopecasting and discover a good God casting hope your way.



Scot McKnight (PhD, University of Nottingham) is professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lisle, Illinois. He is the author of many books, including Reading Romans Backwards, Pastor Paul, The King Jesus Gospel, and commentarieson James, Galatians, and Colossians. He is also a general editor of the IVP Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, second edition.







Mark Oestreicher is a partner in The Youth Cartel and has worked in churches in roles ranging from junior high pastor to executive pastor. The former president of Youth Specialties, Oestreicher has authored dozens of books.



Foreword

Introduction: On the Service Road



1. I Want Hope

2. Exile: Life Without Hope

3. Identifying Hope?s Enemies

4. Positioning for Hope: Honesty with Ourselves

5. Positioning for Hope: Honest Cries to God

6. The Pushback: Fear

7. Jesus, the Hope-Bringer

8. Hope?s Arrival

9. Hope?s Dance Partner: Transformed Longings

10. Hopecasting



Acknowledgments

Further Reading

Notes