Hopes for 2017

All We Have To Get Us Through This Year Is Our Hope

President Obama in his inaugural speech in 2009 said:

And we must be a source of hope to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the victims of prejudice –- not out of mere charity, but because peace in our time requires the constant advance of those principles that our common creed describes: tolerance and opportunity, human dignity and justice.

But now having entered a new period of American history, with a President that in a mere 11 days has been hostile to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, and the victims of prejudice, all we have to rely on is our hope. And the only hope that can sustain us in 2017 and be the true source of hope for our suffering is Christ. As his apostle Paul wrote to Roman Christians in the 1st century:

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. — Romans 5:1–5 ESV

It is with that hope that we hope in 2017 and even when we doubt we can cling to this truth of our hope for all the suffering we will experience in 2017. We’ll leave you with where are hearts are in 2017, through the words and music of J. Cole:

Lord knows I’m hopeless, hopeless, hopeless, hopeless, still I pray