Hope Now: 27 Days to Peace, Healing, and Justiceਨਮੂਨਾ

What the world needs now

When I look back over the first two decades of the 21st century, I wonder where our world is going and what we are becoming – and I marvel at how our world is changing over the course of my lifetime.

I watched my world change across the span of my lifetime, but the changes in the first two decades of the 21st century feel like our world is becoming more dangerous, intolerant and violent.

From hurricanes and tsunamis to terrorist attacks, mass shootings and racial tensions and violence, the answer to the question of what the world needs now feels more urgent than ever.

In 1965, the song “What the World Needs Now is Love” was released. The song calls plaintively for people to love more and hate less. I was intrigued by this song and found that Hal David wrote the lyrics as a prayer to God.

Today, I think I would adapt those words to say that what the world needs now is hope.

Over the years, I’ve experienced what hope can do for a person in a dire situation.

In Kenya, I met 36-year-old Janet, a mother of two children, living in a rented home in Nairobi. When Buckner staff first met her, she was suffering from a broken heart due to an abusive husband, low self-esteem, poor health and was literally starving to death with her children. Janet’s husband abandoned the family and set her house on fire with them in the home – intending to murder them as he left the premises.

Janet desperately needed food, financial support and lots of care. She had no hope that things would improve.

She found a glimpse of that hope through Buckner Kenya staff. Welcomed in, she began family coaching and developed a plan for how to sustain her family.

Today, she’s the lead member of the worship and praise group in her church and serves as the church secretary.

That’s just one of the hope-shining stories I’ve experienced over the years. John Eldredge says in his book All Things New, “Hope is the wind in your sails, the spring in your step. Hope is so essential to your being that Scripture calls it ‘an anchor for the soul.’”

Is faith, hope or love the priority of your heart today?

Questions for Reflection:

• Is there a situation in your life that moves you to the point of needing hope for the future?
• What do you need hope for that you cannot see today or in the foreseeable future?
• Is there a promise you can find in the Bible that speaks to a situation that requires hope?
• What can you point to in your faith that promises the potential of hope for you?