Season of Hope

It’s hard to not allow hope to be a dreamy idea when we’re in the midst of pandemic reality, but it is the place Christ-followers are called to be. We’re not called to judge others, to decide who’s in or who’s out, who we should ignore or even dislike because of their policy choices, who is worth our time or even who is “on the Lord’s side.” But we are called to hope and we’re told that hope will not disappoint.

In a season where hope enters the conversation, I’ve noticed that some folks try to avoid it. It’s like they don’t want to get their hopes up. They don’t want to depend on hope but to leave it as that dreamy idea. That reveals that hope is not easy. It isn’t dreamy, but it also doesn’t come at the snap of fingers. Hope is challenging, just like climbing a mountain. If we’re taking hold of hope, it demands that we give ourselves over to it. It demands a relationship. It demands effort. It’s understandable that some people don’t want to take the chance or the responsibility,

It’s like planting something you intend someday to harvest. In other words, you expect that at some point this will become a practical reality of help. We’re in the season of planting hope with the expectation that it will become help. And, I guess that is one of the things that’s curious about hope. it requires so much of us, as we have to participate in making it a practical reality, that when we finally come to the point of harvest, we can think it all depended on us. It came about just through hard work. But, that’s not true. It is because of hope. It’s always because of hope.