Advent Day 7–The Promise of Hope

Christmas should be a time of rejoicing, but sometimes the days leading up to the holiday can be stressful or even sorrowful. Strained relationships can seem worse this time of year when everyone should be getting along for Christmas gatherings. Many people are missing loved ones who are no longer here. Some people are fighting just to get out of bed each day due to health issues, depression or feelings of being overwhelmed.

Celebrating the birth of Jesus at Christmas reminds us of hope we have through him. In Jesus we receive forgiveness of our sin, redemption, restoration with God and eternal life with him in heaven. If the only hope that Jesus brought us was the hope of heaven, that would be enough. Yet through life in Christ, we also have hope that God is with us through our struggles and trials and that he makes all things beautiful in his time.

I still remember the hope that God gave me that summer day of July 16, 2004. I got up early and met God on the porch. The air was perfect, the bobwhite was calling and a hummingbird hovered close enough that I could hear the buzz of its wings fluttering.

When I’d finished my prayers, I started dead-heading my flowers and thinking about a problem that I had prayed about that morning. I had been praying about it for a very long time, but nothing seemed to change. As I pulled off each withered bloom, I felt like in answer to my prayers, God was pulling away all the things in that situation that grieved me. It felt so good to remove all the dead and withered blooms, and I was filled with hope that the Master Gardener in heaven was doing his work in my life as well.

I began thinking on Ecclesiastes chapter 3. There is a time for struggles and tears, but there will also be a time for joy and laughter. “He makes everything beautiful in its time!” I’d let my problems hang dead and withered too long. I hadn’t totally let go of trying to fix the situation on my own. I needed to let go and allow God to do the plucking! I took some of the dead, withered blooms and pressed them in my Bible in Ecclesiastes 3 to remind me of God’s promise that He would take the situation I was praying about and make it beautiful.

The difficult season I was going through lasted many long years. I guess you could say that there was a lot of dead-heading that had to be done, including some work in my own heart that I didn’t even know was there when I cried out to God on that summer day. Over the years, the dead blooms I saved in my Bible brought me hope. From time-to-time when I prayed, I would “jog God’s memory” about His promise with me and ask Him how much longer I would have to wait. He would gently remind me that the answer would come in HIS time.

Whatever you are going through, don’t lose hope. Let God do the work needed in your heart and in the hearts of those around you. Wait for answers, knowing that even if your problem doesn’t go away on this side of heaven, God will walk through it with you and will do his work in you so you can persevere. Rest in his peace and hold onto the hope that he is working out every situation into something beautiful. We may not see the end result during our life here on earth, but the Bible promises that in heaven, God will wipe away every tear, and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. Keep praying, keep hoping and let God take care of the rest in his time.