A man stopped to watch a little league baseball game one afternoon. He leaned over to a boy sitting in the dugout and asked what the score was.

"Eighteen to nothing — we're behind," the boy said cheerfully.

"Oh, I'm sorry," said the man. "I'll bet you're discouraged."

The boy looked up at him like. "Why should I be discouraged? We haven't even gotten up to bat yet!"

I love that. There is something almost theological about that child's refusal to read the scoreboard as the final word.

The American diplomat Clare Boothe Luce once said: "There are no hopeless situations — there are only people who have grown hopeless about them." Which is easier said than done, of course. But it points to something true. Hopelessness is often less about the actual situation and more about what we have decided the situation means.

The prophet Isaiah was writing to a community that had every reason to be discouraged. Their city had been destroyed. Their temple burned. They were living in exile, far from home, with no obvious path back. And into that darkness God spoke: "I am about to do a new thing. Do you not perceive it?" (Isaiah 43:19)

Do you not perceive it? The game isn't over.

Whatever you are facing today — that word is still in play.

Prayer: Forgive us, O God, for the times we have decided the situation is hopeless before you have had the last word. Open our eyes to the new thing you are doing — even now, even here, even in this. Amen.

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