Bob was in intensive care and not doing well. Sometimes he was alert, but mostly he slept. When his friend, Lee, went to visit, he was not sure what to do. Should he just sit there? Should he read scripture to Bob? He decided that, since they had spent many years together in church singing hymns about heaven, joy, and hope, he would sing those songs to his sleeping friend.
Near the end of one of the visits, Lee said, “I should get going”. Bob opened his eyes, smiled, and said, “That is ok! Even when you are not here, I can still hear you singing”.
I like that Lee left his friend with something hopeful to think about. That made me wonder, “What do people remember about my visits after I leave? Do I leave people feeling better, or do I just weigh them down with all my concerns, worries, and fears?”
It is easy to focus on the negative. If you watch the news at all, you know that we have trained ourselves to see the bad. Good news rarely makes an appearance. Therefore, we need to consciously choose to focus on something better. We need to guard our hope.
Hope is not naive. I am not encouraging anyone to ignore reality, stick your head in the sand, and pretend that there are no problems. What I am encouraging is a different approach. One that looks for the good. As Desmond Tutu once said, “Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness”. Christians, in particular, should be hope-filled people. Not only do we have eternal hope, but we have hope in this life too.
In John 6, we read how Jesus took five loaves of bread and two fish and fed a crowd of more than five thousand people. They had all they needed and still had twelve baskets full of leftovers. Even when we do not know what to do and do not have any answers, God blesses in abundance!
We need to learn to sing a hopeful song, because, when God is involved, nothing is hopeless!
“May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word” (2 Thessalonians 2:16-17).
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