CT: We Were Hoping

Food for thought.

Things happen in our lives that make us want to “pack in” on everything, as the English say. We work and plan and look forward to something and it all comes to nothing and we are tempted to say “What’s the use?” But perhaps we should take a careful look at some of our dashed hopes and try to remember what actually happened later. This isn’t always possible, for our memories are often short. But for years I have kept a sort of journal in which I put down things that seem worth remembering, and it has frequently amazed and cheered me to see the pattern of things past. Some of my hopes failed, and then there have been occasions when something far beyond my hopes took place. “To those who love God,” wrote Paul, “everything that happens fits into a pattern for good” (J. B. Phillips’s translation of Romans 8:28).

Sometimes the worst has to happen in order for the best to happen. We hold a high hope, we lose it, and to our utter surprise something infinitely better than we had hoped is given to us.

Read it all.