There is a quote that I love which has been attributed to a number of different people that goes like this:  “Everything will be alright in the end.  If it’s not alright, then it’s not the end yet.”

I think this quote does an amazing job of capturing the hope of the Christian faith.  Our hope is not that everything will be alright in the middle, but that everything will be alright in the end.

This means that a better question for those of us living in the middle is not, “Is our faith making all of the bad things go away?” but “How is our faith making things better here in the middle?”

Sometimes things are so hard, so messed up, so broken here in middle that if we lose sight of what the true hope of the Christian faith is and begin asking the wrong question, then circumstance can make it seem like we have no hope at all.

But when we remember our true hope and ask the right question, then no matter what we go through we can live with the confidence, optimism, and hope that all things will be right in the end.  That in itself makes a huge difference.