Sometimes it seems the world is spiraling out of control. You don’t have to look far to find greed,
chaos, cynicism, violence and evil in the world. Fearful and uncertain, we ask, where is the
hope? In fact, after reading the
headlines you would think the order of the day should be despair rather than
hope. Yet here we sit waiting to
celebrate the birth of Christ. In the
midst of the hopelessness of this world we have hope. Why is that?
Are we a bunch of naïve Pollyannas?
Are we delusional? Our hope is
not baseless. Our hope is not some
vague, wishful thinking. It is a solid
rock. It is grounded in God’s character,
grounded in the fact that God loves us.
How do we know? Well, tomorrow we
will be celebrating the day God sent His Son into the world for us. Christ is God’s covenant with us—His declaration
of His love for us.
So what is our end of this bargain? Well, we have to accept the notion that God
really does love us (not easy). And we
have to trust God (really not easy). And
how do we present our hope to the world?
I wish I had a good answer to that one.
I believe that each one of us was created for a purpose. Our main purpose is to glorify God and the
tools that we need to accomplish that have been specially crafted and fitted to
us by our Creator. I meet so many people
who are seeking a spiritual life, but the moment I mention church they clam
up. They obviously view the church as a
hindrance to a relationship with God.
How do we get past that? How do
we convince people that we are for, not against them? How do I introduce someone to Jesus? I can think of no better way to impact someone’s
life than to do just that.
My prayer today is for everyone celebrating Christmas. That people would see our hope, maybe in
something as simple as a smile or an encouraging word. And that we would remember God’s gift and
the Reason for our hope.
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