There are different meanings for hope. One is wishful thinking. I hope it doesn't rain next week because I'm planning to go to a game.  I hope you like apple pie because I made it for dessert.  Then there's someone or something on whom expectations are centered: "He is our best hope for making the playoffs".  But the hope that makes not ashamed (Romans 5:5), the hope that inspires us is an bright expectation.  It is what keeps us going, the knowlege that something wonderful has and will happen.

Hope is sung about by many Christian artists.  Michael Card penned and sings this song:

Hope has been woven throughout all creation,
An anchor that holds through the waves.
Hope is the helmet of each noble soldier,
For only the warrior who hopes can be brave.

Hope you in the Lord and renew your strength,
Soar you up on eagle’s wings.
Tirelessly run the long race that’s set before you-
Your life’s the song the Father sings.

Hope that you can see is really no hope at all,
And like children you see faces in the clouds.
We hopefully listen to the silence of life,
And find in it His shouting out loud.

Hope you in the Lord and renew your strength,
Soar you up on eagle’s wings.
Tirelessly run the long race that’s set before you-
Your life’s the song the Father sings.

And though your life may seem to sound a dark and minor key,
It will someday shift itself to major,
And the lyric of your life will rhyme with nothing less than joy,
And you will find that hope is from the One that you believe.

Hope is an echo in the air all around you;
It is the sound of heaven’s symphony.
The hope that is Jesus will never disappoint us;
It tenderly tells us: to hope is to believe.

Hope you in the Lord and renew your strength,
Soar you up on eagle’s wings.
Tirelessly run the long race that’s set before you-
Your life’s the song the Father sings.