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Program Notes or Transcript

What is it that keeps a person going, trying, surviving even when life seem impossible?  It’s a big thing called HOPE?  Do you have hope today?  Hi this is Doug Flemming, hoping that you will join me for five minutes of music and message on the program Take Five, brought to you by the Church of the Nazarene. Here’s a Tale of Two ladies, both named Hope…one had everything, but still couldn’t cope; the other had nothing yet was happy as the Pope!  Okay, sorry about my poor attempt at poetry, but the words are true.  Several years ago I worked at a research firm.  One of my co-workers was named Hope.  She had everything, several college degrees, even a PhD in chemistry.   She had a great job with prestige and position.  She had a nice home and car, yet she was a very pessimistic, depressed person.  She moped around the office, cursing God, as though she had no hope.  I know another lady named Hope, a poor woman who weekly comes to our house, asking for bottles, cans or newspapers to recycle.  She has nothing.  No real income.  She lives in a squatters shack without running water or electricity.  She never finished high school.  Yet this Hope is always happy.  Always smiling…even praising God.  She lives up to her name, a woman with Hope.  Why?  What makes the difference.  The first woman did not believe in God.  So all of her trust was on temporal, physical, material things.  The second woman, daily puts her hope in God alone. My friend, with which woman do you identify…the one with or the one without hope. 

Today’s Music: Only Hope, Switchfoot

Despite your physical, financial situation, you can have hope in this world. David the poor shepherd wrote three times in Psalms 42 and 43, “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.”  My prayer for you today friend comes from Paul’s letter to the Romans, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”  Find hope in Christ today, then spread hope to others.