The birth of Christ is God's hope breaking into the world anew. As we reflect on this new and glorious morn, what's our expectation for the future? 

The Christian story complicates some understandings of hope, particularly when we think about human agency. Christmas is an opportunity to recognize that God's power—not just our own—is the focus of true hope. 

If hope is about a better future, then true hope begins with an honest acknowledgment of all that is wrong in the present.

What's your prediction for the future? It's a notoriously tricky business making predictions like that. But the story of Christ's arrival seems to radically reshape humanity's relationship with the future. Through Christ, God assures that the future can be better than present. In other words, Christ gives humanity hope. 

What do we do while we wait? The Apostle Paul describes Christians as people with a "citizenship in heaven" and a people who are eagerly waiting for a savior from there. What does faithful waiting look like? 

Paul's list of the fruit of the Spirit offers a beautiful, inspiring picture of flourishing Christian community, yet it ends on a sobering note: to fully experience love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and gentleness, each us needs to practice self-control. 

Gentleness (also translated as "meekness") is sometimes misunderstood as weakness. Christian preachers often go to great pains to remind people that meekness isn't weakness. While that may be true, it's also beside the point: gentleness, as a fruit of the Spirit, is about demonstrating softness, tenderness, care, and compassion in all our interactions with others. 

How do followers of Jesus respond when we feel our most important values are under attack? And what does the fruit of the Spirit have to do with it?

What if some of the goodness we lack exists in those with whom we have the deepest disagreements? 

Is kindness a form of weakness, the last refuge of people who can't get what they want any other way? Or does kindness contain a surprising and subversive power, a fortitude that allows us to move toward each other even in the most impossible of situations?