Isaiah 1-2
Galatians 5
“Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope...” Romans 5:3-4, ESV
In 1946, Victor Frankl wrote Man’s Search for Meaning as he reflected on the nature of hope in light of his time spent in Auschwitz during World War II. In the midst of the hopelessness of camp life, he said some became brutal and cruel, thinking only of their own survival; they colluded with the Nazi guards and betrayed their fellow prisoners for scraps. Some just gave up hope entirely; they just did not get up one day or stopped eating. There were others who grabbed onto a temporal hope, thinking “If I could just get through the war, then I could get back to the wealth, the career, the family and the home that I once had.” Yet, when the war ended, none of those things were returned and Frankl observed their lives marked with ongoing despair.
We live in a time where there is a deep absence of hope for the future of our world. Severe weather events point to potential climate catastrophe. Stubborn inflation entrenches the cost-of-living crisis. There is a deepening political division on both sides of the border. Contemporary film and television, with a few exceptions, paint a dystopian vision of our future. We have a generation racked with depression and anxiety. Studies show that young people are far less likely to marry, have children or vote compared to previous generations. All around us is deeply embedded with selfishness—“as long as I am okay”—that gets collective expression with the rise of racism. Hope for the future of the world is in short supply.
But, is there a different way to respond to the erosion of hope? Frankl observed in the midst of the brutality and hopelessness of camp life, there was a small, yet significant group that remained kind and possessed inner liberty and strength. It had to do not with the possession of hope in temporal realities but in eternal ones.
Scripture tells us over and over again that in Jesus we have an eternal hope. Peter writes, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade” (1 Peter 1:3-4). We have been born again into a living hope, a hope that we are being invited to embody for the sake of the entire world.
May our life, shaped by the living hope in us, show the world a different way to live.
Glorious God, in a hopeless world, You are the living hope that I hold onto. May the hope that I have in You shine in the world around me. Thank You, Lord.
Galatians 5
“Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope...” Romans 5:3-4, ESV
In 1946, Victor Frankl wrote Man’s Search for Meaning as he reflected on the nature of hope in light of his time spent in Auschwitz during World War II. In the midst of the hopelessness of camp life, he said some became brutal and cruel, thinking only of their own survival; they colluded with the Nazi guards and betrayed their fellow prisoners for scraps. Some just gave up hope entirely; they just did not get up one day or stopped eating. There were others who grabbed onto a temporal hope, thinking “If I could just get through the war, then I could get back to the wealth, the career, the family and the home that I once had.” Yet, when the war ended, none of those things were returned and Frankl observed their lives marked with ongoing despair.
We live in a time where there is a deep absence of hope for the future of our world. Severe weather events point to potential climate catastrophe. Stubborn inflation entrenches the cost-of-living crisis. There is a deepening political division on both sides of the border. Contemporary film and television, with a few exceptions, paint a dystopian vision of our future. We have a generation racked with depression and anxiety. Studies show that young people are far less likely to marry, have children or vote compared to previous generations. All around us is deeply embedded with selfishness—“as long as I am okay”—that gets collective expression with the rise of racism. Hope for the future of the world is in short supply.
But, is there a different way to respond to the erosion of hope? Frankl observed in the midst of the brutality and hopelessness of camp life, there was a small, yet significant group that remained kind and possessed inner liberty and strength. It had to do not with the possession of hope in temporal realities but in eternal ones.
Scripture tells us over and over again that in Jesus we have an eternal hope. Peter writes, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade” (1 Peter 1:3-4). We have been born again into a living hope, a hope that we are being invited to embody for the sake of the entire world.
May our life, shaped by the living hope in us, show the world a different way to live.
Glorious God, in a hopeless world, You are the living hope that I hold onto. May the hope that I have in You shine in the world around me. Thank You, Lord.
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