‘...we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.’
Romans 5.3-5 (NRSVA)
Dear friends,
Last month I wrote about Hope, to find the same theme in the United Reformed Church Moderators’ Report for our General Assembly. I would like to share a little of that with you.
They say: ‘It can be hard to contemplate hope at the moment. How can we be hopeful when we are
being encouraged to be divisive rather than united as a nation? How can we be hopeful when the people and the natural resources of the world are being exploited by those who already have more wealth than they need? How can we be hopeful when war and inflicting pain on others is still seen as the way to deal with problems?’
I’d like to reiterate the effect on creation with all we’ve been experiencing this summer, with heatwave after heatwave. At last we are back to normal temperatures, at least for the time being. I hope, in a different meaning of the word, that you had good times this
summer despite all.
The Moderators therefore wonder how we can be hopeful, so often feeling inadequate in the face of it all. However, they then go on to site many examples of hope in the Church, from individual congregations making a difference in their communities, to signs of growth in congregations. They remind us that, ‘Hope is a foundational Christian character...rooted on the character and promises of God...’ Those, we believe, are fulfilled through Jesus Christ.
We may return to ask how we can have hope in God in our own circumstances, with all the problems of life in general, let alone globally? The Bible verses from Romans may help: as we keep faith in God, those difficulties actually help us to cope in our lives. God is not the author of those circumstances, but through them our character grows, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel even in the bleakest of diagnoses, and so can have hope in God.
As I said in my last letter, God walks with us in all the difficulties we face, and will give us strength and help through each day. And we hear from that Bible verse, that the experience of those difficulties are not wasted, however bad they are, but go on to help us to cope more and to place our hope in God, who loves us to eternity.
In Christ Jesus, Clare <><