Hope Springs Eternal
In South Central Pennsylvania, this time of year is often cruel. For several days earlier this week, we had temperatures in the 70s. I sat outside in shorts and a t-shirt. Today we will only see a high in the mid-forties, and, tomorrow, the forecast is for 1-3 inches of snow. Spring like weather is beginning to replace the winter blues, but not quite. In Alexander Pope’s An Essay on Man, he writes this, “Hope springs eternal in the human breast.”
For high schools and colleges, spring sports have begun. College basketball’s annual championship tournament March Madness is right around the corner with every team dreaming of cutting down the nets. The perennial flowers are beginning to come up. Canadian geese have returned to the pond behind our house and the golf course we live on is open. 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. Pandemic restrictions continue to be eased up. Hope springs eternal.
While hope does spring eternal, it is impossible to avoid the challenges of life, many of which do really cause tremendous pain and suffering. We can strive to live wisely to try to avoid some of the pain, some of the suffering, but even doing so is no guarantee that beautiful spring weather will always be in your daily forecast. A warm sunny day is often quickly forgotten when the ground is blanketed with snow. 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).
“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful” (Hebrews 10:23).
“He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (Isaiah 40:29-31).
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, 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 does spring eternal.
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