Happy New Year. I mean that. But can we be real for a few minutes? This year, many pose that more as a question: “Happy New Year? How? When?”
As I write this:
The holiday season brought varying experiences. Pleasant or unpleasant, we’re still recovering.
Thousands of fire-affected families and businesses in the Los Angeles area and storm-affected people in the Southeast face incomprehensible losses and monumental challenges.
The presidential inauguration is at hand. What will that and the next several years bring?
Hideous violence and war rages in 15+ nations.
Our national borders are still unsolved frontiers.
Lone-actor terrorism and hate crimes continue unabated.
School violence and active shooter events remain shockingly frequent.
Our national politics see-saw between stuck-in-the-mud nonsense and hostile feuds.
Violence against women, children, and the disempowered remains sickeningly prevalent.
Lawlessness and utter disregard for others’ property seem to know few bounds.
Affordable access to quality health care is becoming nearly impossible for most people.
High prices force unwanted lifestyle choices for most of us.
Tech conglomerates are now a new ruling class whose unfettered power we and our leaders currently endorse.
Social media, AI (artificial intelligence), and the web are fostering a no-holds-barred frontier wherein truth, civility, and order appear to be becoming choked out.
Our community and region dramatically differ from what we knew just 10 years ago. Property development already committed and inbound will yet again alter our physical and cultural landscape… though none of us knows for sure how and when.
In our ministries, we are seeing marriage and family stress, strife, and worse, at levels not seen before. Tragically, our community has recently seen horrific and tragic family violence.
This list could be expanded, but why? Isn’t it already too draining? The point:
Many are experiencing some or more anxiousness, confusion, dissatisfaction, stress, disconnection, or a sense of being unmoored. How about you? To what extent are you or those you care about just putting their head down and doing their best to plow ahead in their own strength?
When did you last do a caring but unvarnished wellness check on yourself? How are you doing, really? Are you, like so many, adopting ways to survive and cope you know better than to do, or are you less healthy than you wish for yourself?
You and I were designed by God for more and for better than that—to know hope, to live from hope, and to be hope for others. Hope is fuel to endure, to overcome, to find opportunity in adversity. How full is your hope tank?
Want more? I encourage you: Take a first step in a hopeful direction. Please consider one or more of these:
- Attend a local church, or more than one, several times in the next few weeks;
- Reach out to someone whose hope tank seems fuller. Invest in personal time together. Have them over, or go for coffee or a meal with them.
- Do something you know is replenishing: Watch a favorite inspiring movie, read an inspiring story, spend some time outdoors (especially near water), listen to some of the kind of music you know fills you, talk with an old friend, etc.
- Laugh a lot, even if you’re faking it (science shows that actually works).
- Reach out for some professional help. It is more than okay to do so.
- Do something to serve a neighbor, relative, friend, or group in our community.
- Talk with God, even if you are not sure He is real. Pour out your heart, a bit at a time… and be sure to rest in quiet to see if maybe you sense something He might be indicating back to you.
My wife and I find our hope in a person who is knowable, touchable, and tangible: Jesus Christ. If you would like to know more about that, don’t hesitate to reach out to a trustworthy person you know, or us.
May the God of hope touch you and fill you with hope enough for the journey today, tomorrow, and all the days ahead. We love you. Yes, you.
~John Poundstone, Joy Church, Fernley
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