Hope for 2016!

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla were in the news recently. They made a pledge to their new-born daughter Max that they would devote more than 90 per cent of their huge wealth, some 45 billion dollars to the advancement of humankind with a particular focus on education and health.

In a promise to their daughter they said: “Today your mother and I are committed to spend our lives doing our small part to help solve these challenges…these issues are too important to wait until you or we are older to begin this work.”

Not only do they wish their child to grow up in a better world, but other children too. It is an encouraging story at the start of 2016, a commitment to help remake a troubled world. It allows us to hope that 2016 will be a new year in real terms for some at least.

In a recent BBC religious broadcast, Professor Alister Mc Grath from Northern Ireland spoke of our need for hope – not as a naïve and shallow optimism - but as a robust and secure confidence that there is something good, there is someone good, who will triumph over despair and hopelessness.  One of my new year resolutions is to try to be that person of hope for others in 2016? What is yours?

May we have a happy & prosperous New Year!