Recently, I met my newly-born, great-niece. She is small, fragile and much loved. Her parents, grandparents and many family members exploded with excitement upon wee one’s arrival. What an extra special gift. And, especially since she arrived near Christmas, what a gift indeed! A joyous season is beginning in the lives of my nephew and niece! Memories abound and jump to the surface recalling the youngest days of my own precious little ones when they arrived many years ago. The newness. The expectancy. The holding. The cuddling and never wanting to let go! Seasons of life how they come and go, like the seasons of our earthly home. In Ecclesiastes 3:2-8 we read of many seasons that affect lives: 1 To every thing there is a season... As we begin a new season in our lives, by entering the year of 2021, for some it is a welcome season. possibly it’s like that of my nephew and niece, of new life, new family and new love. Others not so much. Possibly new trials, new tribulations, new challenges, or new adversaries. Through it all, there is a continued, consistent hope on which we can depend. Hope, you ask? Hope definitions include, "expect with confidence" and "to cherish a desire with anticipation." The hope, expectancy in, and of Christ! We are to hope in Christ alone--optimistically, expectantly, positively; with confidence and a desire of anticipation! This makes the seasons of life livable, endurable, enjoyable and delightful! A blog post in the Billy Graham Library referred to the following verses for eternal hope: 1st John 5:13-14 ¹³I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. ¹⁴This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 1st Peter 1:3-6 ³Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, ⁵who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. Ephesians 2:8-10 ⁸For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. 2nd Corinthians 4:16-18 ¹⁶Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. ¹⁷For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. ¹⁸So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. John 4:13-14 ¹³Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” If you are in one of those seasons, which attempts to consume the best of us, by wreaking havoc with your emotions, ambitions, choices and day-to-day challenges, then I beseech you to seek, grasp and take hold of the hope of Christ and claim it as your own.
ta ta for now Vi Gene
1 Comment
Pat
1/9/2021 12:10:38 pm
Thank you for my photo. Glad you like it. Have a nice WE
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