Reflections On HopeSample

Have you ever noticed how we love to regale each other with travel stories? Especially stories of travel gone wrong! Tales of flights missed, delayed, or diverted to exotic (or less than exotic) places. Luggage lost or left behind. Wrong trains that took us where we hadn’t meant to go. Cruises that bore no resemblance to what was on the website. Even in the 21st century, with the best technology at our fingertips, travel doesn’t always go to plan.

We should all, then, have some sympathy for Paul. The context for our reading is Paul having to change his travel plans. He doesn’t tell us why (although we can be pretty certain it didn’t involve airlines). But it’s not the change of plans that has riled Paul. It’s something else. Paul’s critics have latched onto Paul’s change of plan and portrayed it as disarray. “Paul’s message is about as reliable as his travel arrangements,” they hoot.

Paul’s response is strident! “Yes, our travel arrangements have changed, but our message has been 100% rock solid. Your hope resides in God’s promises, and God doesn’t change.”

Disrupted travel plans are usually just inconvenient at the time, and before long we are laughing as we tell our friends about them. It can be a different story when life doesn’t go to plan. When loved ones die, or our health fails us, or people we love betray us, or careers end abruptly.

Those events can leave us feeling as if there is nothing to hope for, that all hope is lost and God is nowhere to be found. But Paul reminds us that even in those times there is hope. Others may fail us, and we may fail ourselves, but God’s promises are 100% rock solid. To that we can say “Amen”, to the glory of God.