We hear a great deal about "hope" and "change" these days; our President was elected to a large degree because of the idea of these concepts. The problem with many of our social programs, our organizations and many of our lives is that they don't really offer any hope for the future. They don't provide the means or a goal to change the heart of the individual.

Typically, we address getting through the day, living hand-to-mouth; this is especially true since our government and judiciary have largely turned their backs on Christ...we end up with programs that offer no absolutes on which to base their own existence. "A man or woman without hope for the future cannot live creatively or productively today" (Henri J.M Nouwen) - at least not in a way that they can sustain until they see change. We offer food or money but nothing of substance in which to believe, nothing that will guide them to a life-change tomorrow.

There must be promise in the events of today for there to be any permanant change in our lives and only Christ offers this hope. If we realize that our sadness today is a road to joy tomorrow, we have purpose in our lives and maybe, just enought to pull us through and realize that in the journey itself, there is purpose...and purpose leads to meaning and meaning to joy.

Throughout most of the history or our country we knew that to succeed as a people we must build our society on a sound, Bibical foundation. This wasn't hidden, it is still there to see though revisionist historians are working furvently to make it disappear. As we turned our collective backs and allowed it to happen we now realize the reward for doing so is to slowly lose that which we had. As surely as reading scriptures and praying in classrooms have disappeared from our schools, the hope that we as children found in Christ has evaporated into hopeless despair about the future of each young heart and mind.

If we can't show our children that there is joy in the end - even if they don't lift themselves out of poverty here, then they have no reason to live lives that will fulfill any visible purpose. We end up with the least-common denominator, just getting by any way we can regardless of how it impacts the lives or property of others. If we are without incentive we are without hope. If there is no hope we will know no joy. True joy only comes in the end when Love in the form of Jesus Christ wins and we get to look forward to eternity with him.

Share Him today in the ways you are gifted. Only lives changed by His love and life will provide hope for tomorrow.

In Christ,

Brad