Hope Springs…
Posted on: April 24, 2014
- In: Everyday Life | Faith | Seasons of the Church Year
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Pixie basking in the sun
Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers.
~ Robert G. Ingersoll, quoted in the Book of Positive Quotations, 2nd Edition
Earlier this month, I saw the first real signs of spring in my yard. Not the mud patches exposed by the melted snow, or the brown grass beginning to turn green, but the purple and yellow crocuses that were quickly followed by early stardrift.
I heard the sounds of spring in the early morning birdsong outside my bedroom window. And I felt spring in the sunshine—not the cold glare of winter sun, but the warm rays of spring our cats and dog (and even our corn snake) like to bask in.
The arrival of spring gives the world a fresh start and offers us hope that life goes on—just as Jesus’ resurrection gives us both the hope of new life in him now and the hope of eternal life.
The scriptures talk about the hope that we have in Jesus. The apostle Paul, in Romans 15:13*, speaks of our God as “the God of hope”: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”
Note that we’re called to “abound in hope,” not just to have a faint hope that God will be with us and help us. And when we feel as though we don’t dare to hold out hope anymore—for recovery from an illness, for a child to return to the church, for other long-awaited good news—we need to remember that we can ask the Holy Spirit to renew our hope. As Psalm 147:11 reminds us, God longs for us to place our hope always in him, in his power and in his faithful love for us:
His delight is not in the strength of the horse,
nor his pleasure in the legs of a man;
but the LORD takes pleasure in those who fear him,
in those who hope in his steadfast love.
Even when life throws us a curve ball, we can think about the times God has strengthened us in the past and continue to hope and trust in him, as the psalmist does in Psalm 43:5:
Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my savior and my God.
I pray that, whatever situations we face, we would hold onto our hope in the Lord and his love for us.
Early stardrift in my garden
Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark.
~ George Iles, quoted in the Book of Positive Quotations, 2nd Edition
(*Scripture quotes taken from the Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition.)
A Catholic Convert in Ottawa 