Hope

Hope 

‘Tis the season! Already the Holidays are upon us and the rush is on. In a little over two weeks the frenzy of carols and tinsel will be over. For us in the northern climate snow and cold are with us for another four months. Too bad Christmas isn’t at the end of winter. Then we could move right into spring.

Hope is one of the hallmarks of the season. It is sung in the music, printed on cards and preached from the pulpits. For all the hype of hope, I sense a lot of hopelessness in the air. Our political, cultural and economic climate wants to dampen any attempt to hope for something better.

This is not something new. Throughout human history whenever hope is heralded promising a greater future for humankind, there is a counter force to squelch it. Could it be that there is an increased fear abroad that to hope is an exercise in futility? Why be disappointed again?

The Bible is rich in its encouragement to hope. Over and over God encourages  people to step out of fear and put their trust in him. Biblical hope is the confident expectation that He is in charge; in charge of world events and my life. Sound scary? No scarier than going it alone and floundering in failures and disappointments. Learning to trust the Lord that he knows what’s best for me and the world is the secret of hope.

I am reminded of Abraham, the father of all believers. When he realized that he couldn’t do what God promised him, a son, because he was too old, the Bible says, 

“when everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn’t do but on what God said he would do. And so he was made a multitude of peoples.”

Could this be the real reason for the season: to be challenged to hope against hope and trust God?