What Are We Talking About Here?

I've been wondering if anyone reading this questions what exactly hope is? I don't want to open a dictionary... that's too easy. So what are we talking about? To me hope isn't abstract, it's a concrete kinda thing. Let's take a look at dreams vs goals. To me a dream is something we really wish would happen or we can have whether there is any basis for this to actually come to pass is not required. A goal is something written, where we explain not only exactly what we want, but how we are going to achieve this, when, and where. In a sense we virtually will it into existence. We use faith.

Ah Ahhhh, we have gone all around the issue. Seems like we have considered everything but hope. We have discussed, dreams, wishes, goals, & faith just not hope.

When I consider hope I like to use it in conjunction with faith because I think they happen to work well together. If faith is the ability to will something into existence how does hope play into this? To me hope is the important sidekick to faith... without it faith wouldn't exist. You see in order to have strong faith to will/speak/work something like a goal into existence you must first have hope that the thing you want/expect will happen. A dream is just that, something that would be nice to have or do but hope is the grass roots believe that it the thing you want will eventually happen. Faith is the will we use to persevere, to plan, and act this desire into our lives.

I was talking with a friend last night that is having problems with hope. Circumstances are bad financially, they are looking for an additional income stream but things are so bad that they don't feel like they invest anything in themselves to get them out of this situation. They are hoping for something in their life to change but things are so bad that they don't want to be the ones that make a decision because they don't want things to get any worse. I bet some of you reading this can relate. My advice to my friend was to open their mind to the possibility that there is a solution to their problem. That if they will remain open to that possibility, dream about that happening, and then start imagining this actually taking place, in other words start hope process... hope that this thing will happen. Believe in themselves just one more time. Oh and one last thing... pray about it. God knows you are here and you are hurting and he wants you to come to Him with this. He will show you the way if you ask. This has always worked for me so hopefully it work for him too.

Well my sermon is over. Usually I leave the sermons to my son, Pastor Chris. Anyway, Hope you have a wonderful day full of the hope of good things coming your way and the faith to act on that hope.