Hope for the Hopeless

If you’ve never seen it, or it’s been a while since you have, the movie opens with a scene of men, women, and children praying for a man named George Bailey. The camera pans, and the image shifts from a snowy Bedford Falls to a vision of heaven and a conversation between two angels. They’re preparing to send help to George Bailey and to discuss the next angel in line—Clarence, a novice angel without his wings. The conversation goes something like this:One angel says to Clarence: “A man down on earth needs our help.”Clarence asks: “Is he sick?”The other angel replies, “No, it’s worse. He’s discouraged.”Have you ever been there before? Is there anything worse in life than feeling discouraged? You know, discouragement is truly a sense of hopelessness. [highlight]And we live in a world that is looking and longing for hope.[/highlight]The famous Christmas song “Oh Holy Night” contains this line: Long lay the world in sin and error pining.I looked up that word pining—it’s one we don’t hear very often. It actually means to suffer a mental and physical decline, especially because of a broken heart. Sounds a lot like deep discouragement or hopelessness to me. But the song gives us some desperately needed good news:‘Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices.A thrill of hope because He appeared. There are many things for which to be hopeful, but perhaps the greatest is a baby born in the town of Bethlehem more than 2,000 years ago. And that hope is what Christmas is all about.[ctt template="2" link="Gt116" via="no" ]There are many things for which to be hopeful, but perhaps the greatest is a baby born in the town of Bethlehem more than 2,000 years ago. @KevinPaulScott[/ctt]“For to us a child is born,to us a son is given;and the government shall be upon his shoulder,and his name shall be calledWonderful Counselor, Mighty God,Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”– Isaiah 9:6Merry Christmas!