Shelby Olive

Isaiah 60:2-3

For darkness shall cover the earth,
and thick darkness the peoples;
but the Lord will arise upon you,
and his glory will appear over you.
Nations shall come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

Reflection:

I’m just going to come right out and say it: I’m a glass-half-empty kind of gal. It’s not that I actively look for things to see in a negative light. But I find that even when I try to “look on the bright side”, I can’t seem to ignore the problems. Now, being someone who has at least some social aptitude, I know that people generally don’t enjoy Debbie-Downers. So, not wanting to make others uncomfortable, I usually just keep a lot of my “negative” thoughts to myself. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing. There are some things that are just better left unsaid. But sometimes I let it go a little too far and start bottling anything that could be perceived as unpleasant or problematic. Sometimes, I can even start to tell myself that these very real and serious issues are not really problems at all, and I can just get over it.

This passage starts out in literal darkness: a darkness that covers the entirety of the earth, and a thick darkness over its people. Well, that certainly sounds foreboding. The words of this passage in Isaiah refer to a dark time in Israel’s history – a time of exile where the people of Israel were forcefully scattered among the nations. Their homes, their loved ones, the community they once enjoyed are all gone. They couldn’t just bright-side their way out of this one. There was no bright side. What hope could they possibly have? This is when the passage turns, when Isaiah prophesies that God will do what the Israelites have always known God to do: God will show up and set things right for them again.

Sometimes, the first step to hope is acknowledging that things aren’t as they should be. That something isn’t quite right, or perhaps even very, very wrong. Hope does not ask us to have a positive attitude regardless of our circumstances. It is not a mere act of looking at the glass half-full, and at the same time, it invites us to stop looking at the glass half-empty. Hope is not the act of looking to the bright side, nor is it a myth. Hope invites us to look at the whole of our lives, just as the Israelites were able to do, in light of God’s own character. When we do this, we see a God who comes through for those who cry out for help. We see a God who has promised not to forsake us and then keeps that promise. This is the kind of hope that we can count on – not a hope that has leaves us with wishful thinking but one that counts on God doing what God says God will do. This is an honest hope.

Prayer:

Dear God,

I confess that I am often tempted to avoid hope in fear of being left disappointed. Sometimes, it is easier to protect myself with cynicism than it is to hope for something better under the guise of being “realistic.” But God, to be without hope is to forget who you are. You are a God who shows up, a God who does what you say you’re going to do. So today, I resolve to have hope. Amen.