By Geoffrey Spencer

For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light. O continue your steadfast love to those who know you, and your salvation to the upright of heart!

“A Brightness of Hope,” Choose Hope: Adult Study Guide, Herald House, p. 32, excerpted

The power of hope is so formidable that we do not yet appear to have observed the circumstances that can utterly distinguish it. Hope has proved its toughness in another significant way. Many people live their lives as a series of disconnected episodes. Often these are happy, positive, successful, and satisfying. But almost without exception people will encounter experiences in life that are potentially destructive: sickness or life-threatening disease, failure, loss of employment, natural disaster, loss of a companion or child, thwarting of ambition.

The power of hope can provide a framework within which these varying experiences can be faced and dealt with from the larger perspective. One might almost say that hope serves as a bank account from which withdrawals can be made to accommodate the harsher blows of life. Without such a foundation or framework, people will tend to approach each dark episode as a fresh crisis to be faced on its own terms “unarmed” as it were. The response is more likely, under such circumstances, to be fear, anxiety, hostility, disillusionment, depression, surrender. For the person of hope, experiences of the “dark side” will be no less painful but can be confronted and survived on the resources of hope, because each experience is evaluated within a transcendent framework of meaning.

Hope, then, is acquainted with hopelessness, refusing to yield to despair or glossing it over with fantasy. In this respect, hope is as durable and realistic, even as practical, a response as it is possible to make to the possibilities of our human experience.

Prayer Phrase

“Rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; persevere in prayer” (Romans 12:12).

Deepening Roots

A tree with superficial roots will wither during drought, or severe storms may uproot it. A tree whose roots go deep is stable and draws from deep waters. Imagine yourself as a tree by a river or stream. Sense your roots extending deep into the earth in search of God’s Spirit. Reflect or pray about what you hope to find as your spirit searches for deeper identity in God.

Today’s Prayer for Peace

Engage in a daily practice of praying for peace in our world. Click here to read today’s prayer and be part of this practice of peace.