Paul uses these same words by which Plato developed the concept of hope to make his claim that we should have an absolute confidence and expectation of things in our future. The future should be as much a reality to us as is the present and was the past. Such a confidence is only in accordance with our own habit of making positive decisions for God's plan. Your habitually good decisions in God's plan will make you absolutely confident to expect certain things in your future. Habit hardens the body for great exertions, strengthens the heart in great peril, and fortifies judgment against first impressions.
Habit breeds that priceless quality of calmness and confidence that lightens one's task.
Paul was so confident in what the word of God said that most thought of him as being arrogant. To have meaning in life you need to have a philosophy that looks forward to something better, i.e., eternity. If we really believe what the Bible has to say we will not love the things of this world over that which is eternal. Hope therefore, gives the believer a personal sense of destiny in regard to the future. In your thinking, if you have hope you go forward to the fantastic future that is to come and bring it back into time with great strength and power to overcome your present problems.