Hope is not a program

Just a reminder for all of us out there burnt out and depressed today. As Christians, we believe on faith that things are going to get worse before they get better. God has not assured us that truth and goodness will slowly ascend to victory over time; quite the contrary, Scripture tells us at every turn that evil will win, and win more, and finally reach its hour of triumph before our God intervenes suddenly and supernaturally.

For our children, we hope that the ascendancy of evil will not be in our day. For our neighbors' salvation, we hope that truth will not be discredited in the eyes of all. For ourselves perhaps, we hope that our legacy will be the good we accomplished in our lives.

But as for the course of the world, we do not hope that we will achieve the victory of good. We will fail in every measurable way. The hope that Obama proclaims is not finally our hope; at best he proclaims hope for a time and a season.

Our hope is not a program.

Our hope is in God, the master of history, who has brought Obama to the presidency; our hope is in the root of all being, who turns the heart of the worlds' leaders wherever he wills; our hope is a final hope, that seems so distant but closes around us with each death of someone we loved; our hope is hope not for America, not for prosperity, not for equal rights, not for just wages, but for the attainment of the goal towards which all of history strives. And this hope will be achieved by a force from outside the flow of history.