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The first week of advent is about reflecting on our hope in Christ and the celebration of His long expected birth 2 thousand years ago and His expected return in our future.  Hope is a powerful feeling of expectation that something will happen in the future that will be better than what is happening now.  We hope for Christmas vacation because it is better than being in school.  We hope for the weekend as it is better than being at work.  We place our hope in Christ as His promise of a life with Him is better than a life without Him.  Paul quotes Isaiah in Romans 15 saying:

The Root of Jesse will spring up, one who will arise to rule over the nations; in him the Gentiles will hope.”

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

I work in mental health and come across many people who are hopeless; hopeless to the point of suicide.  Hopelessness is the expectation that the future will not be better.  It is a perceived loss of options for finding reasons why life will be better, where ending life is seen as the only choice left to make.  In that moment my single most important purpose as a mental health nurse is to offer them hope.  I look into their life, I hear their story and find even one thing that can help pull them from despair and give them a reason to not die, to find options for them to focus on, give them hope.  For many people these options include family, future activities and plans they would like to do, or projects left undone.  God looks into each of our lives and reads our story.  He sees our despair and searches for the hope that gives us the options we need to keep living and moving forward.  He finds Himself written in our DNA, He sees the transforming power of the Cross, and He sees the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit.  This provides us our joy and peace that Isaiah spoke about, our hope.

Why do you have hope that your tomorrow will be better than today and where in your story is it found?  Does it reside in the birth of The King?  Does it reside in Jesus?  He truly is the Hope of the World.

Written for the first week of advent by Dennis Jasper.  Dennis is a Lecturer in the School of Nursing at University of British Columbia Okanagan and is currently doing research in bipolar disorder, quality of life, and rural care delivery.