Growing up as a baseball fan in the 70's, I learned the meaning of the word hope. Hope is what kept me following my favorite team (the Tigers) through the dog days of summer, when they lagged behind in the standings, and any reasonable person would have thrown in the towel. Hope is what made me check the scores in the newspaper, to see how my team fared long after my parents sent me off to bed the night before. Each spring, hope was awakened, giving new life to the dreams that had been dashed the previous year. As the old saying goes, "Hope springs eternal."
For Christians, the word hope has a much deeper meaning. The Psalmist writes, "But God will never forget the needy; the hope of the afflicted will never perish (Ps 9:18). Yet as Paul writes, "Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently" (Rm 8:24-25). There is an understanding that in this world we will have trouble, but Jesus gives us his peace, enabling us to continue to have hope despite difficult circumstances. Hope is not our final destination, but is what enables us to carry on until we reach it.
As Christians, we are called to bring hope to the afflicted. At ECM, we believe it is our responsibility to give the hope that Jesus offers to those most in need. It is the hope that God has not forgotten them, that he has a plan for them, and that he will one day not only rescue them from their distress on this earth, but will also give them an eternal reward. Now that's worth hoping for!
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