Hope

You might have heard it said, where there's life there is hope.  This deep truth has been said beside many a sick bed, many a tragedy.   As humans we are always hoping as the great English poet Alexander Pope put it:  "Hope springs eternal in the human breast."  We live in anticipation of better things into the future.  This is what we constantly look forward to.   If there was any time when hope is sorely needed, it is now!  All over the world hope has been infected by a virus and its effects are seen everywhere.  Extreme isolation.  Skyrocketing unemployment.  Mental stress.   Shattered economy.  And the death toll rising daily.  Where is hope in life?   What is there to look forward to?

What do you do when hope is hard to find?  What do you do when life is filled with so much anxiety, so much pain, so many questions, so few answers, so little hope? Well despair sets in.  Some call it depression, but it feels more like oppression.  Hopelessness becomes the diet of the day.   And little seems to satisfy.  In the face of COVID-19 this is exactly where many people find themselves.  Perhaps this is where you find yourself.   You find it difficult to be beyond blue.  

This is exactly the kind of despair that the writer of Psalm 42 found himself in.  Like a needle stuck on an old record, the words repeat time and time again, "Why, why, why?"  The agonizing question 'why?' became his persistent song in the dark night of his soul.  Like many in our world today, the psalmist wondered when he could return back to the way things were.  Out of isolation and back with his loved ones.   Back to the routines of weekly worship joining in "with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng." (Psalm 42:4; cf. 43:3)  Back to a real sense of God's presence and goodness.  In his despair, soaked in daily tears, he voices his anguish:   "When can I go and meet with God?.... Why are you downcast, O may soul?  Why so disturbed within me?"  (Psalm 42:2,5; cf. vv. 3, 11; 43:5)

So what do you do when hope is hard to find?  You do what writer of Psalm 42 did.  In the midst of hopelessness and despair, the psalmist reminds himself over and over again:"Put your hope in God! For I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God." (Psalm 42:5,11; cf. 43:5)   He reminds himself that because of God, things will not always remain the same.   There will be better days ahead.  These are great reminders for us as we front the COVID-19 pandemic in the days and months ahead.   We need to put our hope in God.   My daily devotions this week remind me that the Almighty God is "my only source of hope."   The way to beyond blue is to look beyond the finite world to an infinite God, the creator of all!   "Our help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth." (Psalm 121:2)   Our only source of hope!

As Psalm 42 reminds us that better days are coming, we need to remind ourselves that COVID-19 is a temporary crisis.  It will all be over one day.  Yes, there is a period of isolation to slow the spread of the virus.  But this too will pass.   Our physical distancing from others, avoiding public gatherings (including Sunday worship at church), and limiting unessential movement is how we can help others in the community avoid contracting the virus.  Meetings will resume.  People will get back to work.   Stress will diminish.   The economy will bounce back.   And lives will be saved from death.

How do I know?   How can we be sure of this?  Well our hope is secure in Christ!   The apostle Paul, writing to the church in Corinth, told them that even though outwardly he was wasting away, inwardly he was being renewed day by day!   Even though everything on the outside looked bleak and grim, inside he did not lose heart.  As he writes:  "For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.   So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.   For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."  (2 Corinthians 4:17-18)  Paul knew that better days were ahead.  And the proof of this was the resurrection of Jesus, the guarantee of our own resurrection. (Cf. 2 Corinthians 5:1-15)   

Right now you might not be able to see the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.  You might not even be able to imagine that better days will come.  Fix your eyes on what is unseen.   Fix your gaze upon the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit. (2 Corinthians 13:14)   As you do that, hope will spring eternal in your heart!   Put your faith in Almighty God and you will be "sure of what you hope for and certain of what you do not see."  (Hebrew 11:1)   

Where there's life there is hope.   But an even deeper truth:  where there's hope there is life!   When you put your hope in God you anticipate that the old can become new (2 Corinthians 5:17), that diseases will be healed (Psalm 103:3), and that death will be swallowed by victorious life (1 Corinthians 15:54),  Find hope and you will find life!