FutureHope

Special Installment: Christmas Eve
Jesus is our future. Jesus is our hope. Jesus is our everything.

Christmas Eve is one of the darkest days of the year.

Today, we have experienced only nine hours and 26 minutes of daylight, which leaves us with more than 14 hours of darkness.

The world around us seems dark as well. We've got climate change. A nuclear North Korea. Cyber-attacks. Global terrorism. Personal insecurity about relationships, jobs, health and retirement. We're living in a world that feels like the line from "The First Noel" ... a cold winter's night that was so deep.

Deep, deep darkness. Some say that when you're experiencing darkness in your life, you should pray for God to free you from it. If you are still in darkness, pay the electric bill.

That might help.

But we're not the first people to face dark days. In the time of the prophet Isaiah, about 700 years before the birth of Christ, the people of Israel were walking in darkness -- they "lived in a land of deep darkness" (v. 2). God seemed silent to them, and they were "greatly distressed and hungry." Isaiah tells us that...