Our devotional today comes from Dr. Kay Higgins who, after 43 (!) years of service, is retiring from TCU. She currently serves as Associate Dean of Student Development & Director of Parent & Family Programs. You can read her bio and several loving testaments about Dr. Higgins on this website (Do it! Go read! She’s incredible!). As my colleague Rev. Lea McCracken writes, “Kay has been the backbone of the TCU family experience for four decades. Her presence, devotion, and hard work over the years has defined the love, honor, and pride of our Horned Frog families. Her legacy forever shapes how we all bleed purple.”
Thoughts on HOPE
Reading:
Ephesians 1:17 – 19: 17 I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, 18 so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.
Reflection:
“I hope you will come to see me this weekend.” “I hope I get what I want for my birthday.” I hope I make a 100 on my Calculus test.”
We use the word “hope” often. The hope we reference here is grounded in some anticipation with an ample amount of doubt or uncertainty thrown into the desire, in another word, “wishful thinking.”
Biblical Hope is the confident expectation of what our future will be when we allow ourselves to focus on God and who God is calling us to be. In trying to be more like God, we are in fact living out the hopefulness God has given to us.
Bob Goff (b.1959) is an American lawyer. He serves as the founder and president of Restore International, a non-profit organization that alleviates atrocities and injustices committed against children in Uganda, Iraq, Nepal, Somalia, and India. He is also the author of the New York Times best-selling book Love Does.
In an interview titled, Thoughts on Hope, when asked, “What is your definition of hope? Bob Goff responded: “I think of hope and expectation a lot. They kind of have the same birth parents: anticipation. Sometimes expectation gets a bad rap. I think you should be constantly expecting everything. Just don’t expect things from each other. But expect that God’s going to do terrific things by you, through you, and hopefully because of you. Living constantly in anticipation and expectation. That’s what hope means to me.”
For what more could we ask?
Prayer:
Oh Creator, on this day, we give you thanks for the confident hope that our focus should be on you. In focusing on you, we will more loving, more caring, and seek more justice than we could have ever accomplished alone. In the name of the one whose birth we anticipate, Amen.
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