{"id":5710,"date":"2026-09-03T10:33:23","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T14:33:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5710"},"modified":"2026-09-03T10:33:23","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T14:33:23","slug":"what-the-world-needs-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/03\/what-the-world-needs-now\/","title":{"rendered":"What the World Needs Now"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast<\/em>,\u00a0click here<\/a>


A certain sign just down the road from Mammoth Cave is a real head-turner:\u00a0Little Hope Cemetery.<\/em>

Passers-by are left to wonder:\u00a0

Does the word “little” describe the size of the cemetery, or the likelihood of a happy ending\u00a0for those who are buried in it?

There are more than 200 plots\u00a0in this\u00a0central Kentucky burial site, some of them dating back to 1857.

Why the unusual name?\u00a0The cemetery is named for\u00a0Little Hope Baptist Church, which more than a century ago was right across the road.\u00a0\u00a0

Which only begs the question: Did the word “little” describe the size of the congregation, or the likelihood that everyone would be able to\u00a0stay awake during next Sunday’s sermon?

The apostle Paul famously wrote that there are three great qualities in life: “Faith, hope, and love, these three remain; but the greatest of these is love” (I Corinthians 13:13). It’s easy to grasp\u00a0the primacy of love and faith in a Spirit-powered life.\u00a0Bible readers, however, sometimes treat hope as if it\u2019s a mere also-ran \u2013 the equivalent in the sports world of \u201canother player to be named later.\u201d

Yet hope is the reality we need more than any other when pondering the end of life. In all of our relationships, in fact, what the world needs now is hope.

In his book Chasing Daylight,<\/em> Eugene O\u2019Kelly describes the day that his daughter Gina was born.\u00a0He writes, \u201cThe nurse placed her in [my wife] Corinne\u2019s arms.\u00a0I moved closer to my wife and baby girl, awed by what lay before me.\u00a0

“My newborn daughter was staggeringly beautiful, if a bit squashed from the journey.\u00a0Before I could touch her, she reached out, startling me, and grabbed my finger.\u00a0She held on tightly.

\u201cA look of shock darkened my face. That day and the next I walked around as if in a fog.\u00a0Corinne picked up on my odd, distracted behavior.\u00a0Finally, she confronted me.\u00a0\u2018What\u2019s wrong?\u2019 she demanded. \u2018You\u2019re acting very strange.\u2019

\u201cI looked away.\u00a0\u2018What is it?\u2019 she asked.\u00a0\u2018Tell me.\u2019\u00a0I couldn\u2019t hide it any longer.\u00a0\u2018The moment she grabbed my finger,\u2019 I said, \u2018it hit me that someday I\u2019ll have to say good-bye to her.\u2019\u201d\u00a0

O\u2019Kelly concludes, \u201cIt\u2019s what you get for saying hello to people.\u00a0At some point, good-bye is coming, too.\u201d

“Good-bye” is coming in all our relationships.\u00a0

That familiar word, incidentally, is a conflation of four other\u00a0English words: “God be with you.”\u00a0One day we will entrust everyone we know into God’s hands.\u00a0We will leave them behind, one by one, until the day arrives\u00a0that\u00a0we will be the one whom others will visit in the cemetery.

God’s good news, however, is spectacularly hopeful.\u00a0

For all who know Christ, an amazing reunion awaits. We will be with God and with each other forever.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0

You have to admit: There’s nothing little about that kind of hope.\u00a0\u00a0
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here A certain sign just down the road from Mammoth Cave is a real head-turner:\u00a0Little Hope Cemetery. Passers-by are left to wonder:\u00a0 Does the word “little” describe the size of the cemetery, or the likelihood of a happy ending\u00a0for those who are buried in it? There are more than 200 plots\u00a0in this\u00a0central… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5711,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1209,36,18],"class_list":["post-5710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-goodbye","tag-heaven","tag-hope"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5710"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5712,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5710\/revisions\/5712"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}