Hope. For a Change.

If you are like me, you know at least one person who has been laid off from their job recently. You might know someone whose home is on the brink of foreclosure. These days we all tend to have one eye on our bills and bank accounts, and the other on the list of things we need to do to keep them afloat .
With the national unemployment rate at its highest level since 1983 , and in specific ares as high it's peak during the Great Depression, fear of collapse is bubbling under the surface of everyday life for many Americans. For some, that fear is becoming reality. And for some, that reality has brought despair. And that despair has brought suicides, murders, depression and the like.
Politicians and Wall Street are both doing their best to pass blame on to the next guy, but the truth is we have been living in a castle built with sand. Most everyone I know carries a load of unsecure debt, on top of secured debt, on top of one or two mortgages, on top of cell phone bills, cable bills, Internet bills, with a boat or ATV payment thrown on top.
For too many years, we Americans (especially us 30-somethings and younger) have been sold anything we could ever want. We've filled our lives with gadgets, do-hickeys, thing-a-ma-jigs, and whats-its. We've lived paycheck to paycheck for our entire lives, dutifully checking to see "what's in your wallet" when the time for payment came. Think of it: Our lives are filled with plastic toys we paid for using plastic. And plastic isn't listed on the Periodic Table of Elements. It has no fundamental value.
Job said "If I have made gold my hope....If I rejoiced because my wealth was great...This also was a sin to be punished by the Judge, for I denied the God that is above." (paraphrasing Job 31:24-28) How much more foolish are we to have made plastic our god?
First Thessalonians 4:13 instructs us what to do when faced with death. We aren't to mourn as those who have no hope, but we are to have faith in the ressurection of the dead unto Eternal Life. And, in this time when so many of us are seeing our 401ks die a slow, painful death we must have Hope - not in their ressurection (though that would be nice!) but in our Champion, the Lord of Hosts.
I believe that Hope is the missing element in our society today. Without hope, the homeless man drinks himself to death. Because she sees no hope of a better future, the inner-city child drops out of school and makes the street corner her final resting place. The executive who lost everything sees no hope of tomorrow as he jumps from his office window. The blue-collar worker turns his shotgun on his family and himself. Hope. Hope. Hope.
If you are a believer today you have Hope within you. Don't be afraid to share Him with those who are mourning in darkness. It may save a life.