Hope!

Yesterday at my church a candle was lit. It marked the beginning of Advent by lighting the candle of hope. How fitting that hope is the first candle lit in marking the season of the advent of the Christ. It was with hope that generations waited on the Christ to appear into “time”. It was hope that kept the prophets from giving up in telling the truth to a hard-hearted and stiff-necked people. It was hope that still drives believers today to withstand the challenges that they face when they stand for truth amid an anti-truth culture.

Scripture declares:

²⁴ For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? Romans 8:24 (KJV)

Thus hope is a mystery. For if we can see it, why would we hope for it? Yet, it is a mystery that is so real that men will give their entire lives in pursuit of that which they hope for.

I can’t help of think of my forefathers who were enslaved, not knowing if their condition would ever change. And yet they didn’t give in to a self-induced destruction. They continued to live and undergo horrendous circumstances, believing that their children would one day know freedom. And their hope one day became realized.

We cannot, we must not give up hope in the dreams that are in our heart that speak to the life that God promised us in His Word.”Though it tarry, wait on it!”

Maria