Ch. 8: Where is there hope?

This is the shortest and final chapter in the book For the Beauty of the Earth by Steven Bouma-Prediger. It is about hope and where we should put our hope. There are several places he lists that the world tends to put its hope in. Tales of ecological development and improvement are one example. New technology and growing awareness of the world are some others.  But although these may offer hope to some people, are these, to use Prediger’s term, “human seeds of hope,” enough?  He then uses the passage Isaiah 54 verses 1-10 to show us that there is only one real hope. That God is our redeemer and he is on our side. He will take care of us and so we need not to worry. None of the other reasons for hope should be dismissed, for they are real. But our God is a god that can do anything and everything good. So we should put our full hope in him.

Hope is not the same thing as optimism. Optimism is worldly.  Hope comes from another world and is as Prediger puts it, rooted in faith in God.   The last lines of Prediger’s book says,

“For the beauty of the Earth. May we each be so moved by love and gratitude that we bear witness to the good news of the gospel. In doing so, we will with our lives proclaim the hope that lies within us- the hope of God’s good future of shalom.”