The Assurance of Things Hoped For

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By Deborah Hollifield

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This summer has been hot in many ways: The El Niño weather pattern has raised temperatures in the United States to intolerable heights for the first time in four years, shortening tempers and driving people indoors in a way reminiscent of Covid avoidance. We’re all counting the days until autumn, knowing that it will surely arrive, looking forward to the first cool morning and the refreshment it will bring when it breaks the heat.

 

Added to the physical discomfort, emotional temperatures escalated as Americans watched the national psyche spiral into some new chaos every day, in ways that most found impossible to imagine. Last summer’s post-Dobbs prolife euphoria after decapitating the dragon that was Roe v. Wade, receded into this summer’s sober assessment of taking on abortion activists in a fifty-state hydra. Our confidence in our national institutions is eroding by the day.   

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The sense of instability and helplessness is growing in intensity. Ordinary conversations in the Christian community have turned to frequent speculations on how much longer God will allow such rebellion, dissipation, and oppression. Even so, we take heart that just as one El Niño has brought us fiery trials, there is another Son who will break the heat, whose coming is more certain than the autumn, whose judgments are righteous and whose Kingdom has foundations that cannot be chipped away by mere humans.

 

Relief is just around the corner, in a little while.  Stand on the promises of Christ and pray for the hastening of His sure return, even as we continue in well-doing for the least, the confused, the voiceless and the lost. ​