Where do you find hope?
We have now entered the season of Advent. This first week is often called the “Hope” week, which is followed by Peace, Joy, and Love. I have been thinking about hope a lot this year. One quote I really like about hope comes from psychiatrist George Vaillant. My Friend Jim Balmer introduced me to it.
He says, “If you want to treat an illness that has no easy cure, first of all, treat them with hope.”
I think about this all the time.
Being hopeless is crippling. Without hope all we are left with is inertia. There is no power to motivate or move us. Without hope, all of life diminishes.
We live in a world full of hopeless people.
People to whom life has no direction.
Where the weight of each day is hardly bearable.
I meet these people all the time in my work at Hope Clinic
This is one of the reasons I am glad we have the name we do.
We are positioned to stand in impossible circumstances;
with people who have lost all hope and become hope for them.
We do this because we serve a God of hope.
Jesus describes this God of hope in the story of the prodigal son. The father waits each day looking, expecting, hoping his son will return. When he sees him coming far off he is ready.
Against all odds and learned counsel he waits.
When the son appears his hope finds wings.
It runs with open arms and embraces his son;
awakening hope for his son too.
It comes with a radical generosity and a radical invitation for restoration.
I pray this would be our hearts and our hopes as well.
May our hearts be like that father’s heart.
May it rejoice to embrace all the people God sends us.
May we live in hope for all we see, and in our lives reflect a new hope in all that we do!
So let me know… where do you find hope? Have you had any sightings recently? Has anyone given you hope recently? Have you discovered it hidden away?
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