Eddie Grant, "Gimmy Hope, Jo Anna"

One thing is for sure, this world needs hope. With all the tragedies happening each minute, hope is in short supply. And though South African Apartheid is history, black militants are now killing white farmers. Those murderers don't realize that violence begets violence. So is there hope for peace in this broken world?

Eddie Grant, former member of The Equals,  sang many songs about the conditions in this broken world. This song is about South Africa and how the people of that country suffered  because of racism. Listen to the song here.

Often times, God turns hopeless situations around. We read of this in Ruth 1:11-13 (Bible in Basic English) where a widower and her widowed daughters felt hopeless. "But Naomi said, 'Go back, my daughters; why will you come with me? Have I more sons in my body, to become your husbands? Go back, my daughters, and go on your way; I am so old now that I may not have another husband. If I said, I have hopes, if I had a husband tonight, and might have sons, Would you keep yourselves till they were old enough? would you keep from having husbands for them? No, my daughters; but I am very sad for you that the hand of the Lord is against me.'"

We know, what Naomi didn't, that she would be the great great grandmother of King David. Through David's lineage, Christ came.

We also read of a man who lost his children and livestock all in one terrible day. Even his wife told him to curse God and die. We read his lament in Job 7:7 (BBE). "O, keep in mind that my life is wind: my eye will never again see good."

Unlike Job, we know that God gave him double the livestock and the same number of children again once the testing of his faith was over. And as James 5:11 (BBE) admonishes us, "We say that those men who have gone through pain are happy: you have the story of Job and the troubles through which he went and have seen that the Lord was full of pity and mercy in the end."

Then there's a psalm of David regarding Christ's crucifixion which ends in hope and victory. Psalms 22:9 (BBE) is the turning point of this sombre dirge. "But it was you who took care of me from the day of my birth: you gave me faith even from my mother's breasts."

As our Lord did when he went to the cross, so should we also do. Hebrews 12:2 (BBE) reminds us that we must always be, "Having our eyes fixed on Jesus, the guide and end of our faith, who went through the pains of the cross, not caring for the shame, because of the joy which was before him, and who has now taken his place at the right hand of God's seat of power."

And if he hasn't returned by Monday, I hope to post about the need to get away by one's self at times.