Monday, December 7, 2015

Am I hopeful?


My challenge is to write about something hopeful or something hopeless. If I am honest there is one thing I feel hopeless about but not defeated. Despite a lack of courage in humanity to address a serious problem in America I still believe that what we refuse to do God can and will take care of.

It takes a lot for me to lose hope but that fact that we have had more mass shootings than we have had days this year has forced me to face a new reality. For me the new reality in America is that an individual's rights are more important than the basic human right to live. I don't know how much more hopeless you can get than that. I pray a lot! I pray but nothing changes and no laws are amended in the interest of preserving lives. I really need Jesus right now. I also pray for his return. For him to return and reign in peace where all will know the peace that passes all understanding. I pray for a time when we will lay down our weapons and take up war no more. I pray, simply pray. And nothing changes. I wonder how much more I have in me to keep praying. That frightens me because I don't want to be that person that loses hope, but I am afraid I am becoming that person.

Thank God for devotionals. Thank God for Advent devotionals. Devotions that remind me that Christ is coming. Scriptures that remind me what Chirst is going to do when he returns.

Jeremiah 33:14 - 16

" 'The days are coming,' declares the LORD, 'when I will fulfill the gracious promise I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. 
" 'In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David's line; he will do what is just and right in the land.
 In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. This is the name by which it will be called: The LORD Our Righteousness.'

Luke 1:68 - 79

"Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come and has redeemed his people. 
He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David
 (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago), 
salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us--
 to show mercy to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, 
the oath he swore to our father Abraham: 
to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear 
in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. 
And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, 
to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, 
because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
 to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace."

Come, Lord Jesus, Come!

No comments:

Post a Comment