Tidbits for Thought

HOLY HOPE

Isaiah 40:31 “But those who wait on the Lord shall renew

their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles,

they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not

faint.”

Over two thousand years ago, our Lord Jesus screamed into

the blackness of an ugly Friday, “My God, my God, why

have you forsaken me?” … a plaintive, heartfelt yet brutally

honest question that each of us have probably screamed or

shouted or whimpered into the heavens at one point or

another in our lives here on a fallen planet. The very fact

that those words were uttered by Jesus while He was

hanging on a cross, should let each of us know that we are

not alone in our hurt, our grief, and our questions.

After that eventful Friday, came a Sunday when the

beautiful and angelic words, “He is not here, He is risen,”

gave eternal and holy hope to a suffering world. One of the

greatest gifts that God has given us is the gift of hope that

anchors the soul and illuminates the path that leads to light.

All of the promises scattered throughout Scripture are

designed for one thing….to inspire hope. Hope, coupled

with faith, gives us the ability to look at any situation and

know that regardless of how bleak and impossible it may

appear, God is in control and is present in our lives at all

times. This is the very essence and bedrock of holy hope.

In the ebb and flow of human life we all have those dark and

frightening Fridays…. Fridays that may seem dark and

hopeless and endless. Yet no matter the depth of our grief….

the pain of our loss…. the hurt of our betrayal…. the torture

of our rejection…. the weight of our burdens…. the darkness

of our depression…. we have the hope and the faith that our

Sunday will eventually arrive.

God has given us many things, both spiritual and physical to

remind us that He is in control and that eventually the hope

of Sunday will arrive. In the physical world, He gives us the

light of a sunrise each and every day to chase away the

darkness. He shows us through the timeless movements of

the tide that some things never change. He shows us through

the ever-changing seasons that there is a time for everything.

He shows us by the birth of a baby that the hope of humanity

is alive. He shows us through the softness of a snowflake the

gentleness of His nature and through an avalanche of those

very snowflakes His mighty power. He shows us the

rainbow after the storm as an eternal promise.

In the spiritual world, He gave us the power of prayer to

communicate our challenges, our fears, our hopes, our

dreams, and our gratitude. He gave us the gift of the Holy

Spirit to guide us, convict us and give us focus. He gave us

the never changing truths of Scripture to encourage

us……sustain us……nourish us….and give us a holy hope

that is eternal. Think about it!      ~ Aron Smith