Dare We Hope?
Hope Seems Thin
These days it seems as though there is a conspiracy against hope. It's hard to look on the bright side of life when newscasters constantly tell us that we are in danger of destruction, when we have seen that a few people can put an end to life as we know it, when might seems to prevail over right. Is it reasonable to still have hope in the face of all this? Or is it only logical to resort to despair, disbelief, fear and cynicism?
The awareness of the overwhelming and irrepressible evil in our world can often cause people to abandon hope and faith in a God who cares. We need only look 70 years behind us, to the Holocaust, to find an example of evil so great that it led some to abandon their faith. As one survivor put it, "I lost my faith and stopped believing in God when I saw the Nazis take pious Jews out to the courtyard and butcher and slaughter them..." 1