Hope is a tricky move these days.
I grew up setting goals and trying to achieve them. At men’s breakfast this week we talked about our first jobs and mine was a paper route. That was my first experience of setting goals and working towards them. I wanted to go to PEI with my scout troop but needed to earn enough money. I hoped I could do it. So I set a realistic goal, worked steadily, and made it.
We all know what it is like to hope for something but not really expect it to happen. We say, “we dare not hope…” in order to avoid the pain of disappointment. We set achievable goals because if we hope for too much, we set ourselves up to be hurt. So often we put a lid on our hopes, regulate our hearts, and keep our longings small and in check.
This Sunday we move into the season of Advent. It is a season of longing, hoping, waking up those deep yearnings for a better world, the renewal of life, a new path forward. What would happen if we spent the next four weeks letting ourselves take the lid off our hopes, our yearnings, and let them shape how we move through the season. “Let yourself…” is the theme and this week it is “Let yourself have hope.” Dare to actually let your heart rest on what you really long for in this world, in your life, in your family. Let yourself feel the longings, and we will see what God does with them.
Welcome to Advent.
Blessings, Will