Hope. A feeling of expectation and desire for a particular thing to happen; a feeling of trust.
December is the perfect time to read Genesis. I’ve been trying to imagine Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as they received the Word from El Shaddai, God Almighty: “I will bless you and make your name great.”
“Me?” says Abraham, yet to have a child, getting along in years. Isaac with his two warring sons, Jacob with extended family problems. Yes, these men who sometimes messed up, wrestled with God, struggled to obey, but at the end of their lives still praised God saying, “The God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day, the Angel who has delivered me from all harm” (Genesis 48:15).
How could they know what was to come? That generations later, kings and prophets and vagabonds and sinners and persevering souls later would come the Messiah. They couldn’t see it but could only believe what was promised. These men surely looked at their lives and knew they couldn’t put their hope in their mischievous wives or often-selfish children, and definitely not themselves, rather they could only hope in God and His Word. They could only look expectantly for how only God could answer their prayers, only He could fulfill His promise.
This is our only hope too: Jesus. Oh, we try to let ourselves think we can do it on our own, but then we hit rock bottom, with no where else to turn. Instead, we need to turn our eyes as the Genesis men did, to El Shaddai who wove the story of redemption throughout all of time, to Jesus who paid it all so that we might live free and full of hope.
A Heart Like His 