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"Hope in God"There’s an ancient fable about a man sentenced to death who gained a reprieve by assuring the king he would teach his majesty's horse to fly within the year--on the condition that if he didn't succeed, he would be put to death at the end of the year. Later the man explained to his friends, "Who knows what can happen in a year? The king may die, or I may die, or the horse may die. Furthermore, who knows? Maybe the horse will learn to fly."It’s a parable about hope. Now let me explain something about hope. Hope comes into it’s own when things are hopeless, like the man sentenced to death. Hope is what sustains us when circumstances are the blackest and we are the most desperate. But the question has to be asked—hope in what? In the parable the doomed man is hoping for a game-changing event, i.e. the king dies, or the horse dies, or whatever. Job sat in the ashes of his life and clung to hope—in God. In the darkest hours of David’s life he wrote this: "Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted (restless; disturbed) in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance." (Psalm 42:5).No matter how bleak things look for you today, remember that God is on his throne, his eye is continually on you, and he is working to bring the pieces of your life to a glorious conclusion. Christians are eternal optimists. As long as God lives, there is hope.