Hope and Prayer

I call on you, O God, for you will answer me; give ear to me and hear my prayer. Psalm 17:6.

When we are late, often all the lights ahead are red. If you have planned a fun event after a medical appointment, the waiting time will be long but if you have hours to kill the appointment will speed by. Sometimes planning for a long wait, you fortify yourself with a book, crosswords, or a phone. You sit down and they call you in for the appointment.

You cannot expect the unexpected so when it looms on your horizon, you may not be prepared. When the storm rose on the sea, the disciples were not prepared. Jesus calmed the waters. But still they didn't know who he really was. They expected the sea to be rough but didn't expect that Jesus could solve the problem. We really don't know what tomorrow brings. Of course we have plans and we always have hope. William Sloane Coffin, Jr writes "For like nothing else in the world, hope arouses passion for the possible".

But along with hope, we also have prayer. Prayer gives us a foundation on which to build our hopes for today and tomorrow. Prayer often builds our faith so when hope dies and the unexpected happens we are sort of prepared.

Prayer: Hope comes hard for me and maybe for others. So dear God, help us to be more open to others and learn from their hopes and prayers. Amen.

Carolyn Olsen (reprinted from 2021)