Merton has this to say on hoping in God, not man:
We are saved by hope for that which we do not see and we wait for it with patience.
The holy spirit is the one who fills our heart with this hope and this patience. If we did not have him speaking constantly to the depths of our conscience, we could not go on believing in what the world has always held to be mad. The trials that seem to defy our hope and ruin the very foundations of all patience are meant, by the spirit of god, to make our hope more and more perfect, basing it entirely in god, removing every visible support that can be found in this world. For a hope that rests on temporal power or temporal happiness is not theological. It is merely human, and has no supernatural strength to give us.
-Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island, Ch.9 Sec.16
So for the coming year, 2009, put your hope in God. I’m sure your hope in Wall Street is already dashed, but put away whatever hope you still have in your savings and your job, if you still have one. Put away that hope in Obama. It can’t pan out. If you go to a really cool church, put away your hope in that or in the pastor. Put your hope in the only thing that has a well of supernatural strength. Your creator and redeemer.
