What are you hoping for? Have your hopes been dashed? ‘Hope deferred makes the heart sick’, we are told in Proverbs 13:12, and most of us have had many of our hopes, plans and dreams crushed in the past two years. Weddings have been postponed or taken place with only a handful of people present; holidays have been cancelled; we were perhaps unable to visit friends and family as we had hoped to do. Yet humans have a tenacious capacity for hope. Even when our hopes have been dashed time and time again, we still tend to rise up from the ashes and hope for new things!
Paul wrote to the Thessalonians in 1 Thessalonians 2:17-20, speaking of his desire to visit them again. He really hoped to be able to return to Thessalonica, but circumstances just weren’t favourable; ‘Satan blocked our way.’ For Paul, these people whom he had led to faith in Christ, were his hope, his joy, his glory and even if he never sees them again, he can have hope for their future as Christians and all that they will do and be. ‘By sharing our hopes for each other and our communities, we can plant seeds of new life, nurture them and see them grow into something beautiful,’ Sally Welch says in her book ‘Sharing The Easter Story.’ (P 94)
I believe passionately that God has good plans for our communities, that we should learn to love where we live and see the Dearne Valley area with God’s eyes. Our hopes and plans may well be dashed, but God’s hopes and plans will thrive and endure.
