Hope!

Hope. What is it? Where does it come from? Is it something that is “found” or “constructed?”

Bashar Hafez al-Assad, current President of Syria was initially seen by the domestic and international community as a potential reformer and gained the nickname “The Hope.” (Wikipedia). Now, twelve  years after his first election to office, he is reviled by much of the World and some Countries are attempting, however covertly, to drive him from office.

What is the great change from 2000 to 2012? Nothing really. There is no doubt circumstances affect one’s thinking, but he has always been “who he is.” The quiet Doctor of Ophthalmology has, according to human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, changed, and they have detailed how Bashar’s regime and secret police routinely tortured, imprisoned, and killed political  opponents, and those who speak out against the regime. (IBID.)

Hope, when couched in and determined by human terms, reaches its apogee, is always less than expected, and fraught with pain because it is subject to that in which the hope is fixed.

Hope from God’s perspective is a favourable and confident expectation, the happy anticipation of good, the ground upon which hope is based, and the object upon which the hope is fixed. (Vine’s Expository Dictionary) Hope is Jesus Christ, LORD of Glory, Savior of mankind, and the very Glory of God. God is the author, not the subject.

The blessed hope has come in the appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ!