Hope

“It’s ‘Set your hope’, Apostles said;
Not ‘Have some hope’, but ‘Set’, we read.
What could that mean when hope we’ve lost,
And future fades before its cost?

It means to me we have a part
To play when we are losing heart;
It’s not enough to have some hope –
Hope must be ‘set’ – like when we’re broke.

I think of when Elijah came;
On God’s advice, called out again
“Not just some water – bring some cake,
Which you prepare with son to bake.

What was the impact of those words,
Which that poor widow could have heard?
Why, ‘Set your hope’ on future days,
For future starts in present ways.

We cannot give if there’s no more;
We cannot take from shrinking stores,
When we believe this is the end;
Such attitudes we must attend.

When we believe, ‘God will provide’,
Like Easter-eggs, which parents hide
Not from us – for us, and our fun;
In such pursuits our future runs.

The widow gave of her last bread;
For in the words Elijah said
She heard, “God will provide some more,
So ‘Set your hope’ on heaven’s store”.

I picture them – a game they played,
To see where God their food had laid;
And things each day that they must do
To draw from hiding place their food.

“I wonder where he put it now –
Up on some shelf? In stall of cow?
Within some service sold for cash?
Or in some product from our stash?

As they pursued their child-like game,
They found their future rose again;
For they had ‘Set their hope’ in play –
Such actions open up a way.


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