ADVENT WEEK ONE: HOPE

Okay, so track along with me ... I was listening to the radio a few mornings ago while walking and someone on a podcast I was listening to mentioned a publication named, "Repeat the Sounding Joy."  

It got me to thinking... "Repeat the sounding joy ... Repeat the sounding joy ...

I was thinking about how that would fit with one of the movements of Advent that I wanted to write about. I thought about the fourth, and final week's movement, "Joy," but that was too easy! And I can never make anything easy!

So I kept thinking about it and soon, my thoughts evolved to: "Repeat after me ... Repeat after me ... " That might be a good theme for the first week!

Repeat after me: Hope does not disappoint.

How many times have you had to learn something over and over again? Has anyone ever told you after you've failed, "Okay [your name here], repeat after me..."

As I write that, I am thinking of my wife, who is teacher. She has probably sent many a student back to their desks, reminding them to read the instructions again when they failed. She reminds her students: "Repeat after me, read the instructions!"

In my own life, God has had to do that so many times, I've lost count. You name it, I keep making the same mistakes over and over again – failing to heed al of the Biblical knowledge I have acquired over the years.

And the failures usually have to do with trusting God for the details in my life. It goes like this:

I come to the conclusion that I am sick of waiting on God and I need to make SOMETHING HAPPEN to solve my problem (because God sure isn't) and I try to take matters into my own hands. And after much anxiety and stubborn effort, I ultimately fail and find myself flat on my face, having achieved exactly SQUAT!

With a sigh, I relent. And then He reminds me of His love for me by asking me to repeat after Him:

• 'I will trust You because You are trustworthy.'
• 'Hope in You does not disappoint.'
• 'You still have work for me to do.'
• 'You're not done with me.'"

And after a while of continued stubbornness, His reminders give me hope to pick myself up, dust myself off, hopefully having learned something, and move on in His plans and purposes for me.

Romans 5:3-5 says:

We also have joy with our troubles, because we know that these troubles produce patience. And patience produces character, and character produces hope. And this hope will never disappoint us, because God has poured out his love to fill our hearts. He gave us his love through the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to us.

It's a built-in reminder when we fail to believe in Him, He can be trusted. He will not disappoint. Even ... no, ESPECIALLY if the troubles we are experiencing are self-inflicted, as mine usually are.

The process of 'repeat after me' I described above is similar to the repentence and restoration process described in the Bible in places like Revelation 2:5 and 1 John 1:9. It's a process whereby you realize that you have:

• Turned away from God to try to do life on your own,
• With that realization, you then make a decision to turn back to Him (repent), recognizing what you did was wrong, and,
• Ask Him to forgive you and lead your life again.

It's a process where God beckons us to begin again, having been made right with Him. Because our only HOPE is in Him. If you find yourself in the same predicament I got myself into, I encourage you to relent and repent and begin again to follow Him.

The larger question.

Asking Him to forgive you when you decide to turn away from Him assumes you WERE following Him to begin with before you went your own way. But if you have never asked Him into your life to begin with, none of the above matters. But the good news is, 'repeating after Him' is as simple as agreeing with Romans 10:9-10:

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and if you believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, you will be saved. We believe with our hearts, and so we are made right with God. And we declare with our mouths that we believe, and so we are saved.

Make that declaration. You will never regret it. Following Christ is not simple, nor without its challenges. But with His power, His leading, your obedience and His forgiveness, you will have all that you need to do what He has planned for you.

He will give you a HOPE and a future worth living.