“Hope is a waking dream”
Charles Eliot was the president and then, in retirement, the president emeritus of Harvard University. During the summer of his 90th year, he made his way slowly down the road from his cottage in Northeast Harbor, Maine, to the cottage of his neighbors, the Peabodys. Mrs. Peabody greeted him warmly and invited him into the living room. After a brief conversation, Eliot asked if he might hold her new baby.
Mystified, she lifted her infant son from his crib and laid him in the arms of Harvard’s venerable president emeritus. Eliot held the baby quietly for a few minutes. Then, with a little gesture of thanks, he returned him to his mother, explaining, “I have been looking at the end of life for so long that I wanted to look for a few moments at its beginning.”
We all need hope. Especially in old age, but also at all other points in life, we need hope. One of the blessings that comes along with the little ones God entrusts to us is hope. Hopelessness is a leading cause of problem in the life of many. Seasons of adversity, economic or otherwise do not catch God off guard. He knows everything that is going on in our world. He also knows what lies ahead. He is orchestrating all things to fulfill His eternal, redemptive purposes and to glorify Himself.
God cares about how adverse circumstances affect the lives of His children. Those circumstances may be intense and painful at times, but they do not have to overwhelm us or steal our peace. In fact, in the ultimate sense, anything that makes us need God is a blessing!
Crises can provide opportunities for God’s people to flourish spiritually and to point others to Christ who is our only Rock and hope not only in this present time, but for all eternity. Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up. When you have lost hope, you have lost everything. And when you think all is lost, when all is dire and bleak, there is always hope.
“Darkness comes. In the middle of it, the future looks blank. The temptation to quit is huge. Don’t. You are in good company… You will argue with yourself that there is no way forward. But with God, nothing is impossible. He has more ropes and ladders and tunnels out of pits than you can conceive. Wait. Pray without ceasing. Hope.”
When it feels hopeless, hope.