Focus: Don't Abort That Baby Called Hope!

Text: Rom.4:18

"Who against hope believed in hope…"

In HIS Magazine of February 1984, there's a story of a professor in a college ethics class, who presented his students with a problem. He said to them, "A man has syphilis and his wife has tuberculosis. They have had four children: one has died, the other three have what is considered to be a terminal illness. The mother is pregnant." The professor then asked the students, "What do you recommend?" After a heated discussion, the majority of the class was of the opinion that she abort the child, and so they voted accordingly. Then the professor said, "Fine, but you have just killed Beethoven." Beethoven was that child who could have been aborted, following the wish of a majority. Had the mother aborted him, he could not have lived to become one of the revered figures in the history of western music. He became a world acclaimed composer and pianist.

That baby called hope inside of you — do not abort it due to the circumstances that you are surrounded with. Never give up on hope. Giving up on hope means giving up on life.

Let your prayer be, 'Lord, help me keep hope alive!' Jesus Christ prayed for Simon Peter, saying, "I have prayed for you that your faith fail not." Let not your faith be aborted! The word in the Greek for 'fail' here gives us the English word for 'eclipse.' The Lord will not let your faith become eclipsed in the bright daylight. Your faith will survive the blackness of darkness engineered by the devil. Don't abort that baby! Don't let that baby die! Don't kill that idea whose time has come!

A man is dead without hope. How can a person cope without hope? It is with the lens of hope that we can see afar off. Hope saves us and makes us to always look forward to something.

Against hope Abraham believed in hope. He didn't give up. Job's wife aborted her own hope, and she said to her husband, "Curse God, and die." Life lost its meaning for her. She saw no need for God. She found it hard to believe that God in good times is also God in bad times. Be the weather foul or fair, God is still God. She wasn't aware that "the godly may trip seven times, but they will get up again. But one disaster is enough to overthrow the wicked" (Prov.24:16).

I want you to heed the voice of Augustine of Hippo, who said, "He who created us without our help will not save us without our consent." God wants to save us, but requires that we trust Him, and to trust means to lean on God regardless of life's circumstances and challenges. Don't abort that baby called hope! Beethoven's mother refused to abort him; he was born and lived to shake the world of music. He lived only for 56 years, but that was enough for him to rock the world musically. Make hope your anchor!

by Bishop Moses E. Peter