Slow Down and Hope
We’re in the season of hope, but it doesn’t feel like it. This year, collectively, we’ve been through the wringer. Individually, each of us has had unique struggles brought about by the pandemic. In such times, we can find ourselves losing sight of what ought to be the enduring motivation for the Christian in hard times: The goodness of God.
In our time of political turnover and pandemical turmoil, we need solid footing. If you’re anything like me, shifting societal sands bring a need for constant reminder of solidity. When things are waxing and waning every hour, I need the truth that will help me endure; I need concrete, not more sand. If we’re to make it through years like 2020, we need an unchanging truth to help us endure.
As Christians, we have such a truth; we have such an enduring, solid, concrete hope. We can—in days when all around us is crashing and rebuilding faster than ever, hurtling toward what seems to be impending doom—slow down and hope.
Christmas this year looks different that Christmas any other year. Things have changed. But still we celebrate, and still we hope. Our Christmas can be hopeful—even joyful—because God is still God, and he is still good.
God’s goodness can be found in his own name, his self-identification to Moses: “And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, ‘The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth…’” (Exod 34:6 KJV). The LORD himself is abundant in goodness. In the midst of the Exodus, when the people of God had been turned upside down and inside out by struggle and toil and challenge, the LORD was abundant in goodness.
In Psalm 27, David cries out to the LORD in distress as enemies surround him and the wicked seek to devour him. He might even face death at the hands of these wicked foes. However, his hope is not in princes or even military might. David’s hope is in the thought of looking “upon the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living” (v 13). God’s goodness was an enduring strength to David in the midst of his struggle.
While we might not be facing military foes at this time, we are facing unprecedented struggles. Even in a pandemic, the goodness of God can be the enduring motivation for the Christian. God has not changed his character in 2020. The God of 2020 is the same God who revealed himself to Moses and encouraged David. God in 2020 is the same God who, out of his abundance of goodness, planned to redeem his children through his only Son, Jesus Christ. God in 2020 is the same God who has called many sons to glory, and will send Christ back for his church at the exact right time. All of this is God’s goodness. The goodness of God, most profoundly seen and experienced in the Gospel, stands as unchanging truth in an ever-changing time.
This Christmastime, dare to slow down and hope in the goodness of God. Open your Bible and stare at God’s goodness revealed in his redemptive plan. Sit around the table with loved ones and reflect on his goodness in calling you to himself through Christ. Wait upon your Blessed Hope, the Second Coming of Christ. Slow down and hope.