Hope is an Eternal Thing
In South Central Pennsylvania this time of year is often cruel. Spring like weather is beginning to replace the winter blahs, but not quite. Today we will see temperatures close to record highs, so at least for the a few days, we hope to turn off the heat and open the windows. But by the weekend and all next week, temperatures are forecast to be in the 40s and 50s, with lows near freezing. The piles of snow have mostly disappeared, but March and April aren’t exempt from a surprise snow storm. Hope is an eternal thing.
Spring sports have begun practicing. Major League Baseball is in spring training. The perennial flowers are beginning to come up. Water fowl have returned to the pond behind our house and the golf course we live on has opened. The lawn and garden stores are fully stocked with mulch, compost, topsoil, garden tools, and everything needed for spring planting. We “spring forward” this weekend, giving us longer daylight. A mass vaccination site opens today in our county. Some pandemic restrictions are being lessened, but we still need to wear masks and social distance. Hope is an eternal thing.
While hope is an eternal thing, heartbreak and heartache do not need to be. It is impossible to avoid the challenges of life, many of which do really cause tremendous pain. We can strive to live wisely to try to avoid some of that pain, but even doing so is no guarantee that lovely spring weather will always be in your daily forecast. A sunny day today can quickly become a dangerous thunderstorm tomorrow. Life is not fair. Life can be cruel. Hopeful can turn to hopeless in the blink of an eye.
If we put our complete hope and trust in the people and world around us, we will be disappointed. We are called to have hope eternal in the promises of God. While the world that spins around us constantly changes, sometime for the better, other times for the worse, we have a God, the very One who created the universe, who never changes. He is always trustworthy, always reliable, always faithful. Psalm 119:89-90 tells us that “Forever, O LORD, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens. Your faithfulness endures to all generations: you have established the earth, and it stands fast.”
Scripture is full of hope verses. Here are just a few:
“And now, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in you” (Psalm 39:7).
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope” (Romans 15:13).
And maybe most hopeful of all, these words found in Revelation 21:4 about the return of Jesus, a new heaven and new earth – “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
So, as your flowers begin to pop through the soil, bringing new beauty and hope with them, and even if they get damaged by frost and never bloom, because of God, because of what Jesus did for you and me on the Cross, you can have hope – hope in the unchanging promises and unending love of God, hope for a better tomorrow, hope that one day all things will be made new. Is your trust, is your hope, in Jesus? Pray and ask Him for that kind of faith, for that kind of hope! Hope really is an eternal thing.