Starting around last September, I was becoming aware of how many people were expressing their eagerness to leave 2020 behind. This was understandable. The collective struggles throughout the year were heavy, along with the many losses and unknowns. There was a yearning that flipping the calendar would help us move forward, into goodness and hope.
Here we are: January 8, 2021. Eight whole days!
Now I’m observing sentiments like, “I’d like to cancel my subscription to 2021. I’ve experienced the free 7-day trial and I’m not interested.” And then there’s the epic cinema question, “What if 2020 was just the trailer?”, or “Apparently 2020 had an extended director’s cut version.”
A friend’s 4th grade son drew a comic strip of a simple stick figure, elbows resting on a table, and chin resting on the hands. The face had downcast eyes and a straight line mouth. There was no dialogue, but above the figure in each frame were the dates December 31, December 32, December 33…
Despite the arrival of a new year, we still have struggles, and we are still searching for ways to navigate unknowns. What has happened? Was hope so fleeting?
It’s enough to make us cry out to the Lord!!!!!!!
But THAT, looking to the Lord, is actually the very thing we should do, because our hope is never fleeting when we look to the very source of it. The virtue of Christian Hope is not based on human outcome or optimism, or the ringing in of a new year. It is based on God’s Word. For who is more constant, more faithful, more generous than God? More loving, more merciful, more knowing than God? In Him we can put our trust, our hope, the promise of all good things to come.
God’s will be done, in 2021.
