There is hope. For
whatever your day brings, there is hope.
In the midst of days of sunshine, hope is easy to
grasp. When days are dark and we walk through
a valley of shadows, hope can be scarce.
But make no mistake, there is hope.
Hope endures. Hope fulfills. Hope outlasts, outworks, and outshines everything
our human hands can produce. Hope is to
the brokenhearted as a cool drink of water is to parched soil. Hope brings energy, focus, new life. Hope offers a sight unseen; it is the stuff
of dreams.
We only dare hope in something outside ourselves, for only
something outside of our own striving can offer that greater vision of better
days; a better way. We carry foolishness
and immaturity with us as a child. We
carry our inflated self-ego and competitive fire as a young adult. We carry our fears and our mortality as
golden adults. And yet we find hope for
our weariness and hope for our challenges in every stage of our life. Every journey is accompanied by hope. For hope is from God.
Hope is a gift. We receive
hope like a bowl of food at the supper table.
We take our share and pass along the fullness of God for another to receive. We receive our hope from God and we feast in
joy.
We seem to struggle along with a lack of genuine God given
hope. We stress over the silliest
things, we fail to be obedient, and easily become hurt and belligerent because
we do not see hope as our partner in the journey. If we did have hope, we would not treat our
neighbors in poor and uncaring ways.
With hope we would see the path open before us to move our brothers and
sisters, even the ones we struggle to love, to a new position of importance in
our lives. We are not called to like
everyone, but we are called to love just about everyone. And in that loving, we will treat others with
at least as much respect as we would want our own selves to be offered. And it all begins with a gift of hope from
God. It begins with an Easter
Story. It begins with a death, and a resurrection. There is hope.
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the
conviction of things not seen.” Hebrews
11:1 NRSV
