Advent Reflections: Hope (Have You Lost It?)

Happy December! Tis the season for Christmas, but with it also comes much reflection and thought. For many, this is a month full of joy and expectation, surrounded by family and friends. For others, this month is poignant, bringing to mind the wilted dreams, the disappointments, and the loss of hope.

And yet, when all hope was lost, Christ came to birth new hope within us.

Come with me and think back upon that first Christmas. God had been silent for over four hundred years. There had been no prophet nor sign from heaven in what felt like forever. Israel’s hopes in a savior who would deliver them and restore them were dashed. God had gone silent.

Until a baby cried in a manger.

God Brings Hope in Hopeless Situations

In the most unlikely of places, God had brought forth His answer to humanity’s cry—an answer that would resound across the world and throughout history. Jesus, the long-awaited Messiah, had been born, and with Him a new season of hope.

Maybe your life has felt like this. Perhaps you began the year with hopes, dreams and aspirations. Maybe you even had your plans all laid out. But then things got busy, or finances grew tight. Perhaps a friend betrayed you, or you lost a loved one. Maybe your health declined and you had to shift your entire focus. Like Israel, perhaps you now find yourself in a place where it feels like God turned His back upon you, where every prayer seems to hit a solid wall of ice.

And yet, in that place, God wants to remind you of that single cry in a manger. The cry of a baby that turned into the cry of a savior on a cross, making hope possible for you in the most hopeless of situations.

God Has Good Plans for You

I know the pain, the disappointment and the hopelessness are real. It cuts deep and it makes it difficult to stand and keep going. But you don’t have to do this alone. God has made a way, and with that single cry, He has made it possible to hope again. Everything you’ve lost this year, He can restore and make better than ever before. He hasn’t abandoned you. He hasn’t forgotten you. He came to give you a hope and a future.

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” – Jeremiah 29:11, NKJV

Reflect

Take some time to invite God’s voice into your life and ask Him the following questions:

• Where have I stopped hoping?
• Where have I grown disappointed?
• What do you say about each of these things?
• What are you giving me in place of hopelessness and disappointment?

Let us begin this season of Advent, the season of expectation and celebration over Christ’s birth, with hope. And if you have no hope, take a moment to ask God to breathe His hope into you once more. Like the famous Christmas song, let us rejoice knowing that Emmanuel, the God who is with us, is coming.

“O come, O come, Emmanuel
To free Your captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear
Rejoice! Rejoice! O Israel
To you shall come Emmanuel”

Until next time,
Anna

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Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash