Earnest HOPE in a hopeless world

To hope … how does one find hope in a world that seems to be ripping apart at the seems?  How do you explain hope when all seems so bleak and dark???

The last few weeks have seemed pretty dark here in a country that sells the “American Dream.”  You really can’t find a lot of good news, really, you can’t!  We are bombarded on every side — seemingly thwarted in our pursuit of happiness and the American Dream.  Political advertisements that run hatefully, hourly, and quite destructively.  Hostility is at a premium…you can get some here!

Let’s not forget the refugee crisis and the sea of people flooding across the desert mountains of Mexico…all looking for a better life, hope for their children…the American Dream.  What does that look like for them??  A home with a two-car garage, good schools, plenty of food, healthcare, and a reason to hope?  Hope in what???  When you are fleeing life, there isn’t much to run to…or hope in…is there??

I don’t think so…what about the poverty-stricken imprisoned within our own borders?  What of the children who go to school every.single.day with their bellies hollow and their hopes even hollower.  Where is their American Dream and apple pie and healthcare and hope??  Where do they flee to and who would open their arms to receive them???

It’s down right bleak, huh?  I guess if you look at it the way I’ve told it, it is the epitome of hopelessness.  Yet…and yet, there is HOPE!  There is…just look:

In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. (Hebrews 6:17-20 NASB)

Jesus is Hope — He is Hope every time for every need through every heartache.  Hebrews tells us of this Hope.

Did you read that weary one??  We who are refugees have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.  It is an anchor for us — sure and steadfast — Jesus is our HOPE!

So, as you sojourn through the desert mountains of Mexico,  in the traffic jam in Los Angeles, the remnants of Hurricanes and Tsunamis, the lava flows of Hawaii, the fire-engorged valleys of California, out on the sidewalk in front of an abortion clinic, at the foot of your beloved’s casket at the cemetery, in a divorce court you never thought would come, in the confusion of political ads and double-speak…take heart…Hope in Christ.  He came to make us refugees no longer!  He bought us with a great price.  Earnestly hope in Him — when you feel there is no more hope — Hope in Him!