Hope

 

2020 

2019

Hope in the Midst of Despair

A year ago, pitcher Clayton Kershaw sat alone on the bench in the dugout as he watched the Nationals celebrate their win in the playoff series over the Dodgers and Kershaw’s performance. A fan even threw his Kershaw jersey out on the field. Kershaw believed that he had a curse with the playoffs, but then the cheating scandal was revealed. The 2020 season had no spring training and they played fewer games because of Covid-19. Somehow, the Dodgers prevailed and Kershaw won both of his games in the World Series and the Dodgers are the 2020 World Series Champions. A stark difference from sitting alone on the bench. 

When the world saw the lonely player on the bench, that player saw the future to be brighter. He and his team never lost hope. In these times of despair, we cannot lose hope. Hope is all we have when it feels like the world is spinning out of control, and we must hold onto it and not lose it. 

When we are overwhelmed with the world shut down and our businesses our closing or on the brink of closing, we cannot lose hope that one day it will be brighter. When the Presidential election brings out the absolute worst in people, both the voters and all of the candidates, we cannot lose hope that we will always have the freedom to vote for whom we want to be our leaders. We cannot lose hope because then we lose in life and we do not grow or learn. Without hope, we remain in our past failures and tragedies. 

It’s easy to throw in the towel and give up on our dreams, our relationships, our values, our country, our jobs, and there is no reward for it but despair and a life time of wondering what if this or that would have occurred. It takes strength and courage to start the very next day with a winning attitude and believing that we can start over and make it better than it was in the time of despair.  

The media will lead you to despair because they want you to rely on them. Social media people will lead you to despair because they want you to be as miserable as they are. Your true friends and family will guide you into the hope that you need to have. Jesus will bring you to that hope to continue in life. 

When we allow humans to control our thoughts and actions, we fall into despair and lose hope. We are easier to control when we are in despair. When we have hope, and continue to move forward, not only are we allowing for healing and resilience to reside within us, we are making room for the Holy Spirit to guide us to wisdom and growth in Christ and human beings cannot control us. We become so fierce that human beings fear us. 

Hope. It is what propels us to move forward even when the world around us looks bleak. Hope. It’s what motivates us to get back up when we fail, even when we fail over and over again. Hope can defeat the humans who scream at us that if we don’t follow their words, we will never succeed. 

The picture of Clayton Kershaw sitting in despair reminds us all that we have failed and have wounded ourselves and others. The picture of Clayton Kershaw celebrating the World Series Championship reminds us to not listen to the evil and give into the despair around us, but to continue to have hope and to do what we can to make the world around us a little brighter. Hope. It may be the only thing we have, but it’s worth more than any trophy, gold, silver, Presidential election, relationship failures, job loss or death. We may not be able to see the future, but we have hope that our faith will give us strength. “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1 Faith begins with hope. Hope. We must hold on to it and never let go of it.