Wednesday, October 10

Today’s Lectionary Readings: Psalm 18; Micah 3:1-8; Luke 16:19-31; Romans 5:1-5

There are lots of words associated with our faith that get tossed around: words like love, grace, peace, and mercy. Unfortunately, all too often these words don’t often get fleshed out or defined. As a result, some of them become little more than clichés in our lives. I loved today’s passage from Romans because it takes a word that often gets used – the word “hope” – and goes into some depth in helping us understand the term. In fact, verses three and four present a recipe of sorts that tells us what produces hope. The recipe is as follows: suffering can produce endurance; endurance can produce character; and character can produce hope. What I most appreciate about Paul’s recipe for hope is that it reminds us that even the most difficult moments in our lives – those periods of suffering – can lay the foundation for a future sense of hope. I know there are areas of your life in which you are currently experiencing a sense of suffering. I know there are in mine. Today I invite you to try something new. Instead of thinking of that suffering as producing seeds of despair, try thinking of that suffering as planting the seeds of hope. I'll try it too. Let's see where that shift of thinking gets us. Til next next time...