Holding onto hope when there's bad news
A question in last week’s Reader caught my attention. The section where they ask people on the street about some current topic. Last week it was something like, “With so much bad news lately, how are you staying positive?”
Good question, because since then, images of the Caribbean in the wake of Hurricane Maria and rubble from Mexico City’s earthquake, fill our newsfeed. How do we hold onto hope?
People of faith have been asking that question at various times and places for thousands of years. Throughout the book of Psalms you can find people shaking their fists at God and lamenting, “How long O Lord?” “Come on God, do something!” It is believed, Jesus on the cross, prayed Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Valid, needed questions we can and should ask God. Times when shaking our fist is the best prayer we can offer. We need this to grieve the losses in our lives. God can take it. It is a powerful act of faith to shake fists, question, and doubt the way things are unfolding in our lives. And, we have great people throughout the Bible, who modeled this for us. People including the prophets, Job, and Moses.
Thankfully, God doesn’t leave us there. Hope is one of the three great gifts of the Holy Spirit, along with Faith and Love (1 Cor. 13) As we wrestle. As we question. As we shake our fists. God comes to us and says, “Do not be afraid. For I am with you.”
Over and over and over again, God comes to us. Until, we remember how God has been there for us in the past. Until we begin to see God at work through neighbors, rescue workers, and shopkeepers making bread for the hungry and displaced. Until the rains come and wash away the smoke clogging our eyes and lungs so we can breathe again.
Those moments of “Aahhh!” Moments of grace when we catch a glimpse of God’s kingdom come, here on earth as it is in heaven. And, we remember God IS with us. And, God keeps promises. And, through Jesus we see, God is a God who will not even let death stop what God has begun.
Yes, there is much now that makes us think maybe darkness is winning. When we might let discouragement and fear get the best of us. But, during a time similar, yet different than our own, the Reformer Martin Luther was asked a related question. Facing the plague and poverty and warring factions in Germany and a bounty out on his own head, someone asked, “Martin, what would you do if you knew the world was ending tomorrow?”
Luther responded, “I would plant a tree.”
The Rev. Lori C. Morton can be reached at First Lutheran Church — Sandpoint at firstlutheransandpoint.org.