In Psalm 71:5, David said to God: “For You are my hope; O Lord God; You are my confidence from my youth.”
Notice he said: “For YOU are my hope.” David’s hope in the difficult situation he describes in Psalm 71 was not in his army, or in his money, or in his friends or political connections; his hope was not in his own skill or ability — or even in his own prayers! His hope was in YHWH, in the Person of God Himself.

We need to make sure that is true for ourselves as well.

It is easy even for those of us who are “religious” to place our hope in things other than God: in our “connections” or the people we know, in our training and abilities, in “conventional wisdom,” or so many other things. And God may indeed use some of these to help us, but we need to make sure that we don’t put our trust in any of them, but in Him. We should look to Him continually, pray like the answer will be coming from Him, and be confident because our trust is not in any of those inadequate things, but in HIM.

It is also instructive that in :5, “hope” and “confidence” are parallel expressions: “You are my HOPE; You are my CONFIDENCE.” This reminds us that this word “hope” in the Bible does NOT mean “hope so”, but expresses “confidence”. The hope we have is not a vain hope, but fiery and confident, when we can say to God like David did: “YOU are my hope”!