Where would we be without.....It seems as the days roll into each other we are faced with the repeated process of reinventing ourselves; not on a monumental level, but a level nonetheless. Where we stand firm in our shoes on Monday, by Friday our shoes are manipulated, compromised, chaotic, discouraged, disheartened, all in all....muddy. So, how is it we continue to thrive in this mad broken world?The recurring answer is hope, and this precious blessing comes from Christ alone. Daily we stand in the reassurance we are one day closer to the plan God has created for us, where turmoil may encroach our thoughts, we carry the internal gift of hope. Hope allows us to fend off the societal chatter, the internal dialogue clouding our thoughts; hope keeps us balanced and encouraged. Hope keeps us wading through the trenches of humanism. Hope...hope is the answer to our prayers, when we pray, God responds directly by filling our hearts and minds with bountiful portions of hope to allow His timing to proceed as planned, and to remind us He is working in our favor by protecting us. If we could place an adjective on the word hope...how would we describe it? Would we be able to describe the breeze dancing through our hair without feeling it? Would we be able to describe the warmth of the sun on our shoulders without feeling it? How could we describe tears kissing our eyelashes if we couldn't feel them? We can render a depiciton of that breeze, of the warmth of the sunshine and those glorious tears because we can FEEL....we can FEEL hope!Some may say life is precarious, a life dependent on chance, unknown conditions. How can that be when there is hope; easliy stated, hope trumps uncertainty, it overrides the thunderous clap of compartmentalization, it loosens the chains of self-inflicted restrictions. If we are going to be real and honest, there will be times when our hope is lackluster, not so bright and shiny if you will; but we must rest knowing God will continue with a hearty inheritance of hope while we do our part, we must pray, we must care, we must love and understand we are not alone in this rented life. We must deny ourselves and lean not on our own understanding. When we stand back and expand our peripheral just a smidge more, what we will see isn't so riddled and injured, but rather healing and promising. This life is too substantial and tenebrific...where would we without hope! Psalm 71:14As for me, I will always have hope; I will praise YOU more and more.oy Burke
