‘[Don’t] Get your hopes up’

On answered and unanswered prayer.

I was recording a podcast the other day with the subject, ‘Why we don’t always get what we pray for’. Of my two guests, one is English and the other Australian (this is relevant, not racial profiling). Both have seen answers to prayer in different ways and in one case after a period of over two decades. Both confident from those experiences that God does answer prayers and shared what they had learned openly and enthusiastically.

Usually on the podcast I host, which is based on articles published under the platform I manage (womanalive.co.uk), my producer and I look for guests who differ in opinion so that it can be a conversation of differing opinions. This episode didn’t have that, so I jumped in with an anecdote of my own unanswered prayer knowing that many of our listeners will have had similar experiences – or be in the middle of an unresolved situation. At one point, I asked them to consider the phrase, ‘Don’t get your hopes up!’ which I have heard many times living in England as had my English guest, however my Australian guest, had not. “Don’t get your hopes up?!” she exclaimed, clearly appalled at this as any kind of advice, “No! Do get your hopes up!”