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"plant hope!"


Fifteen years ago, when I was Associate Pastor at Yale’s Battell Chapel, I met a Yale professor who had just returned from interviewing college students in the Middle East. “One told me that hope was a luxury they could no longer afford.” No, my friends, hope is the birthright of EVERY one of God’s children! And when we lose hope, as all of us do at some time, we must look vigilantly to find some. And if we’re full of hope, then we must share it with those in need!

This morning at Park City Community Church, Pastor Tracy Hausman preached on the unusual story of the ancient prophet Jeremiah (around 600 BC). He was in jail, having angered the King, and his people were suffering from conquest by the Babylonians. They lived among terrorists and were in danger of being exiled from their beloved homeland Israel. In such a dire time (to which many of us can relate even today), the Lord makes an unusual demand of Jeremiah.

“Buy land. Put your money in real estate!”

Say what? Jeremiah must think the Lord is crazy to ask such a thing when likely he won’t even live in Israel again, if he survives at all !

Still, God’s promise is audacious: “I will bring you all back here to your homes and restore you and your fertile lands. And you will be my people and I will be your God.”

Wow! Would you buy land under such terrible and uncertain circumstances--land for your older self, your progeny? Before I heard Tracy’s sermon, and before I came to know my Creator more deeply after surviving my third bout of breast cancer recently, I would have thought such an act futile, even stupid. But today I would surely attempt it, having heard God’s words through Jeremiah and seen him buy real estate in the face of current catastrophe with a dreadful future. I have experienced the goodness of the Lord, prospering me, even as I faced possible death again.

So join me, friends. Fling hope like seeds all around you on your daily path, especially to those who have given up. For “I have a plan for you,” declares the Lord, “plans for you to prosper and not to harm you, plans for a hope and a future.” Amen!

(Jeremiah 29:11)


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