Hope is a good thing

[bluidkiti]

Romans 8:22-27

Hope is a good thing. We hope for the hidden to be revealed. We hope for healing. We hope for peace and we hope and strive for non-violence. We hope for survival and a long life. Our life passage toward what we long for starts with hope and leads to a leap of faith into the darkness.

When I was a baby in the faith I thought only people like me hoped for salvation and so only people like me would worship the savior. In our crowded, polluted spaces, where materialism and technologies can become false hopes, things can look hopeless even for people of faith who have "the first fruits of the spirit." Along with the Apostle Paul we long for the restoration of creation itself. We hope in the Spirit of God who prays within us "with sighs too deep for words," and God comes to us through the stars and creation and powerful, lovely music of the spheres and, most importantly, in the resurrection that is only possible in faith in a redeeming, loving, creating God who will not leave us or forsake us.

We hope and trust in this God who comes to us as Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer that we might not perish but have the freedom of the glory of the children of God in eternity.

God of hope, we thank you for life and love and faith and for living among us to lead the way through death and new life, into and earth and heaven that will not perish. We hope for what we do not yet see and we eagerly await it with perseverance through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Don Rudrud