How’s Your Supply?

We’re getting into the time of year when the news will have stories about holiday gift items that are in short supply, backordered, wait-listed, people fist-fighting in the aisles of stores…

I’m not thinking about merchandise, though.

How’s your supply of hope holding out right now?

All around us are signs of civilization losing to barbarity, of governments that cannot govern, of leaders who can’t deliver on their promises, of ancient hatreds threatening to overwhelm modern life. Hope is hard to come by. If a store sold hope, would the shelves be empty right now?

Some eighty-plus years ago, a leader confronted a bleak picture; tyranny and genocide on the march, surrender and appeasement in response, the greatest centers of Judeo-Christian civilization cringing in self-doubt.

They say Winston Churchill’s favorite American song was “Battle Hymn of The Republic”, because of the line “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord”.

One of the great hymn-writers, Charles Wesley, reportedly wrote over 7,000 hymns, and in more than half of them, he anticipated the coming of Christ.

The truth is, everything we try as humans, every election, every battle, every new law, is a temporary try until the day of his return.

Not that we can or should give up trying.

Only that we also should not give up hoping.