Hope (01/11/2024)

Last evening, I and about 300 other folks gathered in the pews of a local church to hear the final night’s presentation of a pastorate mission by a spirited deacon who had come a long way to share his faith with us. It was a cold night, but the church was packed with individuals young and old, male and female, married and single. Hope brought us out.

Folks listened, participated in the exercises when called to do so, and drank in the words affirming our Savior’s love for us and our Savior’s desire for our love. I looked around a lot at the faces of others and their reactions. I wasn’t being inattentive; I am short and couldn’t see the speaker. And so, I looked around at the faces of others to see their reactions to what they could see that I couldn’t. They were engaged. And they were full of hope.

Our world needs hope – desire and expectation. Last night, the people present were full of desire: desire to be better people; desire to get this life right; desire for life with the LORD for eternity; desire for the grace to love well always and everywhere. Last night the people were also full of expectations: expecting a change within us; expecting a growth in faith; expecting a sign that all would be alright; expecting the Spirit to move us to become those whom we are called to be.

There was an openness present in the room that I rarely see to the extent that I have witnessed it during this mission. And while I am so grateful to this individual who traveled so far to light our minds and hearts through the power of the Spirit, I must admit I wondered to myself, “And when he leaves, what will we do? What will we become?”

I hope that we will discover in our own midst the Spirit that has always been with us. I hope that we will be willing to open ourselves to the Spirit’s movement in our sisters and brothers who are among us and calling us to be all we can in the LORD’s loving grace. And I found myself praying silently to the LORD for the perseverance of hope for our community.

The Spirit is with us, we have Jesus’ promise and Jesus is trustworthy, and we should always and everywhere be a community of hope. The Spirit stirs our desire for a loving and life altering relationship with our LORD. And the Spirit gifts us for the journey so that we might make our way home to full union and communion with our LORD. Why is our world so lost? Why is our world so divided? It is not for lack of the Spirit or the Spirit’s gifts. It is from lack of hope and lack of cooperation with the gifts of the Spirit.

Within each of us is that restlessness that calls us into relationship with our LORD, recognizing our need for the LORD, the source of our being. Hope is the bridge between faith and love, it is virtue that tells us who we are and what we do matters. Hope is the knowledge that we can do this because the Spirit gifts us and graces us for the journey because the LORD wants nothing more than for us to succeed on this journey. Hope is what begs us to look for gifts and grace and to cooperate with them.

Let us pray that as we journey through this life we never set down our hope.

Until tomorrow, let us all love well.