If any group of people can mine gold out of the sludge of 2020, it’s us. Why? The answer is simple: Christians are in the hope business.
I find it interesting that there’s all sorts of teaching about faith, but very little about hope.
I think it’s because faith deals in tangible things: faith in God, faith in Christ, faith that the Bible is true, faith that God will protect us or help us in a given situation, faith for specific things we feel God has promised us.
But hope deals with indefinite things: the long path of life ahead of us, tests and trials to which there is no identifiable end, the knowledge that when we get through this crisis, there will at some point be another one awaiting us.
What we really want is specific assurances that a particular situation will turn out well, which is why we focus on faith.
But where hope comes in handy is in facing the kind of circumstances we have all had to confront in this lousy year. A pandemic has inundated us with uncertainties. Nobody knows what is coming, just how bad it will get, how it will affect us and when it will end.
A great cloud of unknowing has settled on the world, and nowhere does it seem more evident than in the spectacle of governments desperately scrabbling to find solutions and for the most part falling short.
Politicians are great at creating the impression they can solve all our problems, but the truth is they can’t. They try to offer hope, but hope ungrounded in Biblical truth usually turns out to be little more than fantasy. That’s why we get so quickly disillusioned with them. Yet as I often say: we become disillusioned only because we believed an illusion to begin with.
Christians are the only people who can offer true hope. That hope is not based on politics, an imminent vaccine or the stock market. It’s based on one simple fact: that the baby born in Bethlehem is the solution to all humanity’s problems.
That doesn’t solve some of your immediate problems, but it puts those problems under the umbrella of the grace and mercy of God. No matter what you’re going through, God’s purpose is to bring good out of it. And even if we only see that good in the light of eternity, it still brings comfort.
Christians make two mistakes. Either they deludedly presume that their faith will enable them to overcome difficulty without experiencing adversity. Or they become chronically hopeless, often because they tried the first alternative and it didn’t work.
My family, like yours, has had many obstacles to face this past year. The pandemic has compounded most of them. I don’t know how God will get us through, but I know that he will. That is the power of hope.
And my hope is not groundless. Far from it. The baby of Bethlehem has carried me thus far, and I know that, whatever the future holds, he holds the future.
It’s a great time to take hold of that hope, and to offer it to a hope-less world around us.
CONSIDER PARTNERING WITH DAVID & ELAINE CAMPBELL IN HELPING TO SUSTAIN THEIR ACTIVE MINISTRY.
AWAKENING MINISTRIES // FOUNDATION of FAITH Project
Foundation of Faith Project is strengthening generations in faith and bringing beautiful changes to the communities around them. Through teaching, mentoring and coaching, many are finding out who they are and who they are destined to be. They are bringing more to their world. David Campbell is the key leader in this initiative and you can support him financially directly through Awakening Ministries.
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