One of the things I love about Christmas is the traditions surrounding Christmastime. Our family has a few Christmas traditions, but this year we decided to start a new one. This Christmas, Angela and I decided the kids were old enough to start the tradition of an advent wreath and going through daily devotions with them. It is something I haven’t done since I was a kid. Angela made a wreath and we do daily devotions around the dinner table.
One of the things that we have discussed during our devotions is hope. Hope is essentially the expectation that something is going to happen. In the time leading up to the birth of Jesus, people were anxiously hoping in the coming of the messiah. In December there are a lot of things we hope for. We may be hoping for certain gifts. We may be hoping for no family drama when our families get together. We may be hoping that our families get together at all. We may hope for a white Christmas, or we may hope that we don’t see any snow at all. We may hope to meet a certain someone under the mistletoe. Our expectations are high during December.
The thing about our hope in these things is that our hopes are often not met. Things fall through, we don’t get what we want, or maybe our hopes were just too high to begin with. I remember one Christmas, all I really wanted was an electric razor. I was a teenager and had just started shaving. On Christmas morning, my brother (who is younger than me and wasn’t shaving yet) opened up an electric razor. I got excited because I knew there was no way that he got one and I wasn’t. I unwrapped gift after gift expecting each one to be a razor. Gift after gift it wasn’t. I unwrapped all my gifts and not a single one was an electric razor.
I was so disappointed and baffled. That was all I really wanted, and my brother (who didn’t shave) got one and not me. I was so disappointed that I still remember it to this day. Months later, I found out that they accidentally thought he was the one that asked for it. Was my brother going to let me have the razor or use it? Of course not, brothers don’t do that.
The Bible Project has a video about the word hope in the Bible. In it they say, “Biblical hope isn’t optimism based on the odds. It’s a choice to wait for God.” The amazing thing about hoping in God is that He won’t let us down. Isaiah 40:31 says, “but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” When we hope, or choose to wait on God the results are amazing. No matter what we are going through, it’s important to keep our hope in Jesus. When I choose to wait on Him, He will give me what I need to make it.
until next time…