Right? That is the very nature of Hope, to spark where it’s hopelessly dark and just begin to believe while it’s still pitchblack. Yes, there are varying shades, but dark is dark and my dark is the not the same as yours, what difference does it make? We both need hope. So, we have stories in the Scriptures that are preserved to give us some help in igniting hope. I like this one in 2Kings 4:1-7. This is around 849 BC and being a widow in Israel was about as bad as it could get because there weren’t opportunities to support yourself. You were highly dependent on others and if you didn’t have help, you’d have no hope. “One day the widow of a member of the group of prophets came to Elisha and cried out, “My husband who served you is dead, you know how he feared the Lord. now a creditor has come, threatening to take my two sons as slaves.” “What can I do to help you?” Elisha asked. “Tell me, what do you have in the house?” “Nothing at all, except a flask of olive oil,” she replied. Elisha said, “Borrow as many empty jars as you can from your friends and neighbors. Then go into your house with your sons and shut the door behind you. Pour olive oil from your flask into the jars, setting each one aside when it is filled.” So she did as she was told. Her sons kept bringing jars to her, and she filled one after another. Soon every container was full to the brim! “Bring me another jar,” she said to one of her sons.“There aren’t any more!” he told her. And then the olive oil stopped flowing. When she told the man of God what had happened, he said to her, “Now sell the olive oil and pay your debts, and you and your sons can live on what is left over.” Elisha is not just any prophet. He’s the protege of Elijah, one of the greatest prophets ever, who annointed him as his successor. He’s been given a significant purpose and the Lord has worked powerfully in him, on a nationwide scale, but here the Lord takes notice of a poor widow who has no hope. Elisha gives her a task and it’s up to her to be hopeful and do what makes zero sense, in the dark. I can relate. In the dark of my life, it seems senseless, right now, to think there’s hope. But this is what distinguishes us from the world. To believe in spite of the darkness when there isn’t any tangible reason to. “For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience” Rom 8:24-25 So, what happens if my dark areas remain dark? I have an outstanding Hope. “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 5:2-5 The Love of God is my Hope, no matter what. This is the Hope that begins in the dark. It saves us regardless of how the dark turns out
Love Always.
