Hosea 6:1-9:17
3 John 1:1-14
Psalm 126:1-6
Proverbs 29:12-14
Seventy-eight years ago, a period of fear, despair and helplessness dawned with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. On the west coast, people lived in fear the Japanese were next going to attack California. The hopelessness was perhaps most evident in the Bataan Death March, where anywhere from 60 to 80 thousand Filipino and American soldiers were forced to march 65 miles to Manila, defeated. A tenth of them didn't make it. And it wasn't until almost 40 months later, after terrible battles in horrific conditions, was Manila liberated.
Some victories take much longer. Years later the Philippines was taken over by a dictator in 1965, one who declared martial law in 1972, and ruled till 1986. Twenty one years' waiting and praying, till a peaceful revolution ousted Marcos. Even longer - the ordeal of East Germany, from 1945 to 1989. Forty-four years' suffering, many in despair under the communists, till the Berlin Wall finally fell.
The hardest battles, the ones that never seem to end and most often lead to despair and hopelessness, are the ones we fight to live our lives as best we can. However we try to do the right thing, so many things trip us up. Those who eat right get heart disease. Those who don't smoke get lung cancer. Those who save lose their savings. Perhaps most frustratingly, those who try to live good lives continue to struggle with habitual sin.
When mired in the helplessness of that never ending battle, where to find hope? The psalm is clear: we cry out to God. "Restore our fortunes, Lord, like streams in the Negev. Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping carrying seeds to sow will return with songs of joy carrying sheaves with them."
Father, the battle is never ending, and we face certain defeat fighting it on our own. Be our strength in battle, our hope amidst despair, our victory.
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