Hope

“I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you.”
Joel 2:25

In HOPE, there isn’t anything that is wasted.  The promise to restore the pestilence of the bad years is given to keep people of hope engaged in moving forward.  He is saying, “I will give it back to you.”

It is so easy to sit in the ash and feel remorse for what has happened in the past.  We might say:

“Look at all that we have lost.”

“How can we recover our jobs, our economy, our peace?”

Actually, alone we probably can’t ever get things back to a figurative, “normal” state.  However, what we can do is continue to pray like it all depends on God, and work as though it all depends on us.  

Consider for just a moment what work would be like if you did not believe there was any chance to  reclaim what seems to have been lost to decay, disorder and chaos.

The promise of restoration is intended to keep us grounded in our optimism.  And, it’s intended to make us rely on greater good that we don’t control but to which we contribute all we have.  Not only so that we can work for tomorrow, but also that everything that seems to be lost will be restored.  Working toward restoring things that are broken is where we find our peace. It’s a good job.

What a great way to start a Monday!

God,

Thank you for the dawn of a new day, the rainbow and the hope of tomorrow.  May we work in a way that gives renewed hope to others things they have lost, and may we please be blessed in our hard work to make today as wonderful as it can possibly be.

Amen