Opinion ¢ James Lau is a member of Barker Road Methodist Church.
Christian hope in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world
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his note of encouragement is meant for those who are understandably despondent and forlorn about their future from the worldwide governmentimposed lockdowns and public health measures imposed to contain the spread of COVID-19. I sat for my final undergraduate law examinations at the National University of Singapore shortly after President George H. W. Bush launched Operation Desert Storm in Jan 1991. Since then, I have learnt and re-learnt the same lesson during the various crises, including financial and health, which the world and Singapore have gone through— to trust Jesus and depend on Him.
Christian hope Let me start with what Christian hope is not. Christian hope is not optimism since it is not a denial of reality. According to English lay theologian, G. K. Chesterton, hope is hoping when things are hopeless: “Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all... As long as matters are really hopeful, hope is mere flattery or platitude; it is only when everything is hopeless that hope begins to be a strength.” In a sermon titled “The Sweet Uses of Adversity”, Charles Spurgeon said: “And dost thou not know that hope itself is like a star—not to be seen in the sunshine of prosperity, and only to be discovered in the night of adversity?” Scottish Baptist Minister, Alexander MacLaren, explained in his sermon titled “The Fruit of the Spirit” that hope in adversity comes from the abiding presence of God: “True peace comes not from the absence of trouble but
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