Hope

Yesterday's (February 28) meditation in Forward Day by Day (excerpt copied here) opened my eyes.

If you have strolled at sunrise on an eastward-facing beach, perhaps you saw sunlight reflected in blinding brilliance across water. Your eyes could accept only shielded glimpses, and from wherever you glanced, the glorious path on the water followed, as if your vision drew the light toward you. Biblical hope is like that. 

In contrast, our use of "hope" is a four-watt nightlight. If you say, "I hope it doesn't rain," the fulfillment is "iffy." Hope in God is not. Ordinary hope is no match for the hope attached to our unchanging God, so the Psalmist wrote with Confidence, "You are my hope"(Psalm 71).

In the New Testament, Christ is hope's focus. Christ-centered hope cannot disappoint because its certainty is rooted in the cross (Romans 5). This hope gives life, so that Jesus could declare, "Anyone who believes...has passed from death into life (John 5:24).... 

There have been so many times that I've clung to this hope, this knowledge. Even when I had no clue if the answer was behind Door A, B, or C, or in Drawer 79, I have known peace and assurance in the this wider, deeper hope.

I didn't always think about hope in this way. In my teen and early adult years (maybe even into my middle adult years) hope was that four-watt nightlight. But somewhere along this road of life, Biblical hope took root. A sliver of morning light gently cascaded into brilliance.

I've been clueless of the progression, unaware that the nightlight has been swallowed by the splendor.

This hope is a gift crafted out of life's challenges and wrapped in the prayers of family and friends.