The WORD in ADVENT - Living the Reign here and now #4

Learn to Hope in God

First Wednesday in Advent: 5th December, 2018

Isaiah 25: 6-10; Matthew 15: 29-37

Living the Reign here and now, needs a tremendous dosage of hope! Moments like those that we have seen recently, like the Gaja cyclone in Tamilnadu-India or the wildfire in California, they keep happening in regualar intervals and these days in greater frequency: people stranded, held up,  locked in, left without anything to eat or nowhere to stay or no livelihood to hold on to... at these moments despair can get the better of us. 

I am looking at where I come from... the whole heated discussion of the rising level of intolerance in India and the debates and demonstrations for and against it, is yet another despair inducing scenario. The increasing conditions of inhumanity and violence in the world and the lack of transparent and righteous coalitions against evil, is an alarming state of affairs! 

I remember once, amidst such kind of an experience, receiving a message from a person explaining all private initiatives and possibilities of disaster management... the person was a non-Christian but the message ended with a quote: 'if God is for us who can be against us'. That is hope! And coming from a non Christian person, it was truly powerful.

Christian living and thinking is all about hope. Waiting for the Lord is all about hope. Hoping in the Lord is not a leap in the dark, it's seeing the light that comes through or being determined to pick up the first streak of light that pierces through, identifying that silver lining however thin and subtle it could be.

Hope makes us authentically Christians... fear strips us of it. We need to learn every day and every moment, to hope in God and doing that we would be able to live the Reign here and now!