A glimmer of hope?

CBS news headlines began with a caption saying "Glimmer of hope?" The story was about the current economic climate of the nation, and the week's upturn in the stock market. The brief article stated there seemed to be a little light, but that we are far from over the downward spiral of job losses.

I live in the real world, and am much aware of the struggles people are facing. The church I pastor is located in an area that was hard hit two decades ago when the cotton mills began shutting down. Then the furniture industry was hard hit. Low paying jobs and no jobs are common here. When the people in the community can't work, it affects everything else. Yes, especially the church.

But I haven't intended to write another blog about the economic struggles of the community, nor the church. (I have written those blogs, and they are the most googled of any) To tell you the truth, I rarely listen to network news lately. There is so much negativity that it is depressing. The thing that caught my attention was the caption, along with the question mark.

A glimmer of hope? Glimmer is defined as a faint light. Hope is defined as to desire with expectation of obtainment. And so the question posed by CBS was this-- Is there a faint light shining that will bring an expectaction of obtainment? Or you could put it simply like this-- Is there a light shining?

My answer is that YES, there is hope. There is more than a glimmer. The light of Christ shines in the darkness. The kingdom of God is not paralyzed by the greed of man. He is still on the throne. The Good News is that there IS hope, that Christ lives. The reason the church exists is because there is hope.

You wont find it on the news. You wont find it in the morning paper. But you will find it at your church this Sunday. There will be a praise team or a choir singing about it. There will be teachers in Sunday School or children's church teaching our precious little ones about it. There will be a man or woman of God behind the pulpit sharing this hope. The hope is that no matter what you've done, how you've lived, where you've been. No matter your skin color, education, or what side of the tracks you live on... THERE IS HOPE!