Hope (part 1)

Hope is a wonderful and essential thing. We say that we ‘live in hope!’ Hope gives reason to keep going when trials and struggles come. Always the hope of something better around the corner. But when hope fades and despair floods in, where can I go? Who will save me from the depths? “Hope deferred makes the heart sick” (Proverbs 13:12)
 
The reality of need in my own life is real enough but the hopelessness and need around the world is overwhelming. Is there indeed any Hope?
 
It’s been a summer of fires, floods, earthquakes, wars, and rumours of wars. Place and people names that I’ve never heard of before have suddenly become familiar as they spring up and become daily headline news - Lahaina, Prigozhin, Wagner operatives, Nagorno-Karabakh.
 
Sudden regime changes and new alliances and powers have emerged that alter the balance of world rulers and governments. Everywhere there’s upheaval and threats to stability and peace. Displaced people all around the world. Borders are overrun and failing. There’s no end it seems.
 
Wild fires, some of them deliberately set, devour forests and fields, beautiful countryside and homes, and take out livelihoods and lives. Other unusual or extreme fires break out around the world in factories, buildings, fuel depots, railway lines (as I write there’s news that a serious fire has just broken out in a car park at Luton Airport, which has been closed because of it).
 
Floods in the deserts. Floods in cities. Storms and raging seas. Unusual weather patterns worldwide. High temperatures in one place, hail and snow in others. Earthquakes around the world are happening on an almost daily basis and follow fast on the heels of other tragedies. People displaced, people on the run for their lives, people just looking for something better. Evil has infiltrated our societies, deception and illusion, hatred and violence prevail, in many places, lawlessness and just so much confusion.
 
There’s no shortage of news and information. Always someone with a phone to record live action. Saturation levels make us turn away to find some relief, but there’s no denying it. We are in a pretty bad way.
 
Is Globalism the answer? Can we unite and pull together, work together, sort things out? Can we do anything to pull ourselves back from the brink? Maybe we can have some effect but not enough.
 
Why am I writing like this? What does the future hold? Is there any hope in the face of so much hopelessness? Does the world offer us the answers we need? Why are things like this? Is it even really this bad? If so, what hope is there?
 
There are answers and there is Hope, but not in the world. True HOPE is found in God alone and in the ancient pages of His Word.
 
But does God really have any relevance in our world today? Haven’t we phased Him out? Has he got anything to say to us? Does He have a voice? He really does …
 
I’ve always thought that, if I didn’t believe in God, I would ask the question “If there is a God, surely he would find a way to prove it and to communicate His existence to us. He’d have something to say, He’d know our frailties and know our need, and He’d reach out and come and find us.”
 
Fortunately God has reached out to us to make Himself known. Both by His written word, the Bible - “The Word of God is living and active …” (Hebrews 4:12) - and by His Living Word - “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
 
It’s Jesus!!!
 
He is the Living Word. God has reached out to us through His Son to meet our need and to make Himself known. And He has so much to say to us right now.
 
I’m so glad the disciples and people of His day were always asking him questions, because they ask the questions we’d ask now. His answers are thrown to us across the centuries like a lifeline thrown out to a drowning man.
 
In the face of all I’ve written above, both help and hope are needed. There is HOPE to be found. It’s in Jesus and in the active, living, revealing Word of God.
 
Part 2 to follow …