Hope

O Lord! The face of Your earth is so changing! Every minute, as the seasons roll, there are subtle turns of color and land. The trees so full of life one minute, stripped bare the next. Rolling storm with wind and torrents of water shred the branches and trunks of giant splendor. The creek, a still and silent wonderland, is a rambling flood of deep muddy water coursing over the banks and creating new pathways in the pasture.

I am in awe of these physical metamorphosis…every day I walk the land and see…

As I walk into the new year, I am buoyed by some invisible Light that guides my steps. I am filled with a Hope that has risen from a dark pile of ashes and tears. It is beyond anticipation or plans or resolutions. It is something that I am unfamiliar with embracing. it is not a wish or sprinkle of fairy dust. It is a literal blessed assurance. It is not based on my own strength or the world’s around me. It is not moved by circumstance or uncertainty.

My Hope is in Jesus.

Hope does not disappoint. It is unchanging. Unlike that creek or the trees or the land or the mess around my house or even the precious words of my people.

I read this morning in Romans chapter 5, “…We exult in HOPE of the glory of God!’ AND “…tribulation brings perseverance… brings proven character…brings HOPE…”

I don’t know about you, but I would LOVE to see the glory of God!!! I have no idea what that looks like even, but I imagine a lot of LIGHT and UNDERSTANDING!!!

“…And HOPE does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us!” Romans 5:5

So much of my thinking has dwelt on a verse that says, “hope deferred makes the heart sick” and another, “Without vision the people perish.” I have been perishing and sick with sadness.

In truth HOPE is so much more than such dark thought. I have had a rough couple of years that have reduced me to the ‘navel gazing’ introspective melancholia; Real reasons to be sad and situations that bring heavy grief. Those things have pushed me and pulled me and molded me and shaped me. Like that creek that has overflowed her banks and produced mud everywhere, crushing the bushes and trees and displacing all the little animals living there I am a messy piece of artwork. There is clay everywhere in the Potter’s workshop and much of it is unusable but too, there are large pieces of beauty that are emerging up out of the craziness of the studio…

So here I go…walking slowly into 2023, casting aside the grief and worry and fear that so easily entangles me daily. I am clinging to the HOPE of my calling…the Upward CALL of God in Christ Jesus!!!!