Hope

I’ve noticed how much the word hope is used. I’m not sure if there are more uses of it or perhaps I’m just paying attention to it more. There are the tv shows and movies with the word Hope in them. I’ve also noticed organizations with the word hope in them. Why is that?

I’ve even used it myself.

I looked up the definition of Hope. For the most part it means wanting something to happen to a great degree. Obviously in most cases we want something good to happen. When I used it I meant it in regards to love and opportunity.

I’m sure we have all seen what hopeless is like. Just the opposite - nothing to look forward to. I’ve been there at times in my life, and I have not enjoyed it, nor do I want to go back there. I like it better when I have hope and facing the likelihood that things will happen. We don’t want to give people that; we want to give them more. Hope as in a future, possibilities, potential, life.

Proverbs 13:12 says it best – “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”

I went on a mission’s trip to Africa a year and a half ago. The one thing I did notice amongst the people was that they had no hope. They had a survival mindset in that they would only worry and live for today. Now while some of that may be advisable, the way it is done there is detrimental. Detrimental by decisions made today hurt them for tomorrow or in the future. The focus was on getting only enough food today (somehow) that opportunities were missed on how to keep on getting food going forward.

However, when some of the ladies were educated and taught to think differently, more business savvy, they suddenly were doing things differently and had different outcomes. The end result was also hope. I also noticed that the kids seemed to have high hopes of what they could be when they grow up; interesting. I suppose their hopes had not been squashed by realities of adulthood.

But there is more than hope on this earth. We need hope that things will be better than what is here. Hope that we were created for so much more than what we hear in society, that we have a purpose and a reason for being here.

Someone took our punishment for what was rightly ours to take and in the end has given us hope.

Hope.