A man approached a little league baseball game one afternoon. He asked a boy in the outfield what the score was. The boy responded, “Eighteen to nothing, we’re behind.”  “Boy,” said the spectator, “I'll bet you’re discouraged.”  “Why should I be discouraged?” replied the little boy. “We haven’t even gotten up to bat yet!”
 
Hope and optimism seem easier to come by when we haven’t been to the plate yet.  However for those who have been to the plate without much success, hope is often harder to find.  Maybe that is where you find yourself this week.  I encourage you to read on. 
 
When I first heard that statement years ago I thought, “Is that in the Bible?”  Guess what, it is, in the second half of Ecclesiastes 9:4.  In that day there were no pampered pouches, no potty-trained house pets.  Dogs were scavengers of the streets and considered insignificant or worthless.  A lion on the other hand signified fierce strength.  It was an awesome, powerful animal.  The point is: something totally insignificant yet living is better off than something of great power and significance which is dead.  The beginning of this verse makes the point: “Anyone who is among the living has hope…”  Life makes all the difference! 
 
If you are reading this devotional there is hope for you.  I agree with Clare Boothe Luce who said: “There are no hopeless situations; there are only people who have grown hopeless about them.”  Is that you?  Maybe life has thrown you a curve or failure has marked your past.  Misfortune may seem your lot in life.  Today if you are alive there is still hope, but it is not found merely in your ability, brilliance or strength.  
 
“I am not a connoisseur of great art” says James DeLoach, associate pastor of the Second Baptist Church of Houston, “but from time to time a painting or picture will really speak a clear, strong message to me.  Some time ago I saw a picture of an old burned-out mountain shack.  All that remained was the chimney...the charred debris of what had been that family’s sole possession.  In front of this destroyed home stood an old grandfather-looking man dressed only in his underclothes with a small boy clutching a pair of patched overalls.  It was evident that the child was crying.  Beneath the picture were the words, which the artist felt the old man was speaking to the boy.  They were simple words, yet they presented a profound theology and philosophy of life.  Those words were, “Hush child, God ain’t dead!”
 
That vivid picture of that burned-out mountain shack, that old man, the weeping child, and those words “God ain’t dead”….  Instead of it being a reminder of the despair of life, it has come to be a reminder of hope!  I need reminders that there is hope in this world. In the midst of all of life’s troubles and failures…that all is not lost as long as God is alive….”
 
“God ain’t dead” and neither are you – there is hope!  “If you look without, you will be distressed.  If you look within, you will be depressed, but if you look to Christ you will be at rest”.  You can find hope.  Let the words of Psalm 42:5 ring in your heart today, “Put your hope in God”.  Remember,