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Hope When the World is Falling Apart

habakkuk graphic 3

Let’s be honest: 2017 has been rough.

Mass shootings. Fake news. Hollywood sex scandals. Political circus in Washington. Neo-nazis marching with Tiki-torches. Devastating hurricanes and fires. And those are just the major headlines. When we add to that our own personal struggles, relational conflicts, and the heartache of everyday life in a fallen world, it can feel like we’re nearing a breaking point. Like the world is falling apart.

At times like this is normal to ask hard questions about life and faith. Where is God when so much evil seems to prevail, even among his own people? Why should we trust God when bad things happen to good people, and bad people seem to get away with no consequences? Will God ever make right all the wrongs in this world? How do we persevere in the meantime? Is joy possible when life’s circumstances are miserable? Is there any hope when the world is falling apart?

But these are not just the kinds of questions we ask at the end of a hard year. They’re also the kinds of questions we’re meant to ask as we enter the season of Advent. Advent is a season of waiting and hoping. It’s a time of recognizing that we still live in a fallen world, and lamenting the wrongs we see and longing for them to be made right. But it’s also a time of hoping in God’s answer to this fallen world—anticipating the arrival of his Son. We rehearse the anticipation of his first arrival two thousand years ago—the birth of our King and Savior, Jesus Christ—in anticipation and hope of his second arrival, when Christ will come again to make all things finally and forever new.

We find this same posture of questioning, lamenting, longing, and hoping in the book of Habakkuk. As the prophet’s world falls apart around him, he brings his questions and laments to God, whose answers are both shocking and bracingly hopeful--answers that finds their ultimate realization in the first and second advents of Jesus Christ.

Join us this advent season as we look and long for hope when the world is falling apart.