One of the worst things that can happen to a person is to be in a ‘hopeless situation’. Without hope, life is bleak and cold. But with hope, even life’s darkest moments don’t quite seem so bad.
Hope puts things in their proper place.
One of the key benefits of Christianity is having a certain hope for life and the future. The Apostle Paul said Christians were “called to hope” (Ephesians 1:18). This hope is based on the sin-and-death-conquering work of Jesus Christ. Those who belong to him have true hope.
In the Lord of the Rings, Tolkien expresses beautifully a picture of what this overarching divine hope is like.
“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
I pray you know the hope that Christ gives.
