The Power of Hope

"Ah, darling, it's Behrman's masterpiece - he painted it there the night that the last leaf fell."

closing line of "The Last Leaf" by O Henry

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick", wrote Solomon. But hope alive - can make a heart sing.

O Henry captures the power of hope beautifully in his short story, "The Last Leaf" (http://www.online-literature.com/o_henry/1303/). An ill elderly lady, convinced she will die when the last leaf on the ivy falls to the ground, has abandoned hope and her dreams of painting the Bay of Naples. Another man in the home hears of her lack of will, and sacrifices his own health - and ultimately his own life - to paint on her window a leaf during an icy storm one night while she sleeps. She takes heart, recovers, and remembers her dream. The painter, Behrman, dies from the pneumonia he contracted while painting the leaf that gave her hope.

As I thought about this story, I considered each of you. So many of you are in spiritually dark places, with circumstances that contribute to feelings of hopelessness. When you look at the history and the "big picture", you see little reason to believe that things will change. Even in your little corner, you sometimes question whether you're making any difference at all.

I want to encourage you tonight with this thought: Jesus desires to bring worshippers from all people groups into God's throne room (as pictured in Rev. 7:9). He is the One working underneath the surface of history toward a kingdom goal, the summing up of all things in Him. He painted the leaf on the window, giving us hope in our efforts to reach some little corner of this world of ours -- and the ink he used was His own blood. As a result, as Abraham Kuyper noted, "There is not a square inchin the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: 'Mine!'"

Friends, that is Hope defined ... the hope that even your challenging regions belong to Him.

Be blessed with truth tonight!