Hope

I am writing this having just returned home from meeting an old friend for some drinks. This friend and I have been going through a bit of a rough patch lately. We haven't seen each other very much and our communication has been rather awkward. I was starting to wonder if our relationship was circling the drain. The whole situation was difficult and frustrating for me and I sometimes felt that the friendship might be over. But I decided it wasn't fair to cut and run without trying to talk things out first, so I called and asked this friend out for drinks. And now, a few hours later, the dynamic of our relationship is quite different.

Hope changes everything. I took what little hope I had left for our friendship into the conversation and laid it out on the table. We realized that we do have a special relationship, and even though things have been pretty dry recently, we have reason to hope that our friendship can and will blossom again. When each of us expressed our hope for our friendship, that hope turned into commitment and dedication. We have a future together now because our hope convinces us to believe that future is possible. Even though things have gotten messy, there's no reason why we can't move forward and be good friends again.

Moments like this remind me of why God's plan to redeem humankind isn't so crazy after all. If two friends can sit down together and decide that there's hope for reconciliation, suddenly there's a whole world of possibility before them that can blossom into a happy and fruitful future. Now imagine what can happen if one of those friends is God. As long as I maintain a single spark of hope for my relationship with God, there is no limit to the future of that relationship. God can do all things, and all He needs is my hope to serve as a conduit for His boundless love. God is right to hope for reconciliation with us, because He knows He has the power to make it possible. All we have to do is trust in God's love, and He'll take care of the rest.

As my friend and I talked tonight, I finally remembered why we love each other. Our renewed commitment to that love makes our relationship strong again, even in the midst of the hardships we've been through lately. We both have hope now that we can have a stronger relationship and be blessings in each other's lives. The beauty of our hope is that it will make the things we hope for possible. We have a future as friends because we dare to believe in it and we strive to reach for it. Love is the most powerful force in the world, so it's worth investing hope in.