I Have This Hope

Happy New Year. 

Welcome to 2022!!   If I am honest 2021 did not start or end the way I had HOPED for.  Which makes it a little difficult to be all in for 2022.  But I do think there is reason for HOPE and lots of it. 

In worship we are almost finished with our series on Rebuilding Hope.  We looked at texts that spoke to and about the Christ Child.  A hope that rebuilds and restores life.  A HOPE that is strongly tied to faith, trust and love.  It has been a great sermon series, worth a relisten of either the sermons or the podcasts.  

More importantly HOPE is a wonderful word to begin a new year.  What these two years have been for all of us is nothing short of exhausting and dare I say horrendous?  But holding onto HOPE – the HOPE that Christ brings to us, the HOPE that can sustain us, the HOPE that brings life.  As we enter a new year, I can lean into that.  I can find comfort in that. 

A few years ago I invited high school students to write out acrostics with the word HOPE being one of them.   Here are some of the acrostics they came up with 

He forgives 

Our sins 

Promising US 

Eternal Blessings 

Having  

Opportunity to  

Pray for 

Everyone 

Helping  

Other 

People  

Everyday 

How  

Ordinary 

People do  

Extraordinary Things 

How  

Our 

Personal Faith 

Echoes to others 

These are stunning, informative and beautiful.  These are not just faith statements they are faith practices. 

So as we enter into 2022 together, I encourage you to find ways to live in HOPE.  To remember and be reminded of those things, people, places, objects, verses that give you HOPE.  HOPE is a confidence and certainty that above and before anything else God loves you and God is with you.  The nativity proves that. 

I want to close with the chorus from a song by a group called Tenth Avenue North.  It is a chorus worth knowing and repeating often.  It goes like this,  

“I have this hope 
In the depth of my soul 
In the flood or the fire 
You're with me and You won't let go.”