The Trouble With Hope
There is a double-sided nature to hope:
ON the one hand, hope builds up expectation for great things to come.
It even makes those things better when they do come.
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On the other hand, if handled without faith, hope becomes toxic.
Faith is by its very nature prophetic, because it hopes on that which is to come but has not yet come.
Hope based in true faith in other words, makes things happen that are hoped for.
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So without faith then, you set yourself up for a life of misery.
But with hope based on the wrong faith, you end up bitter, miserable and alone.
There are people wading and wafting around on a bed of perfumed oils who think they have substance.
You could say that hope and joy and peace and love and truth all find a central spoke in God.
Perhaps the way to maximize the probability of your faith
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The messed up part of hope
The reason many of us are messed up and without hope is because we base our hope on the wrong things.
The way I like to think of it is this; it's simple:
Are you kind to the laborer who earns less than you?
Do you tell the truth all the time, not just when you feel like it?
Do you do the right thing?
Do you have peace in your spirit?
If these spokes are all out of order or non-existent; that means you just don't have enough truth for hope. And that isn't necessarily because you're an intentionally bad person.
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Rick the Mess
Take the example of a guy called Rick the mess. Rick always operates on how he feels, never on how the Truth of the situation determines he should act.
He hangs around the shopping malls with his hairy chest, gold chain and huge muscles, floating in a miasma of designer cologne. At this point he's 50.
Two girls come sit by him in the sitting area of the mall. He immediately strikes up a conversation; his voice oozing with self-confidence and sexual appetite.
That night Rick the mess takes these two girls home with him to his apartment and razzes the daylights out of them. In other words he proceeds to do what no ethical man should do to two girls 20 years his junior.
Rick had a tough upbringing. He was never the richest in his school. And most of his life he's been hustling. He was adopted by two well-meaning fairly wealthy parents who sent him to a good school.
But that wasn't enough for Rick. He always wanted to outdo everyone else. He never felt good enough. So he made his way in life by pulling the wool over other peoples' eyes. He was the jock in school who hated nerds.
Growing up in New Jersey, he made a name among his buddies as a lady-killer. A real man's man. They call him sick Rick for all the wild stuff he pulls off.
Towards the end of Rick's life:
Rick gets the news one day; he has a fatal heart condition. His family are by his bedside in the hospital. But his wife finds out he's been cheating.
That's because when he got all flustered over his diagnosis, he didn't keep a check on his game. He leaves his extra mobile phone lying around on the bedstead. So needless to say his wife isn't there in his final hours. Out of graciousness, she doesn't tell the rest of the family. . .
What a mess!!!
Rick suddenly realized it was all a lie. His whole life is a falsehood. Everything h
________________________________________________________________________________The antidote: Doing thing right
The point is, we've all been messed up in life somewhere along the line.
We've all had disappointments.
The thing that really makes the heart sick is when you hope for something and it doesn't come to pass.
Rick's example is a nightmare example of that.
As he gold older and more worn out, he became more desperate for the things he lacked as a child: Approval, love, and the unconditional care of others.
The more he wound himself up, the more tragic his behavior became.
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Addressing False Hope
We have to pray that we base our hope in the real. Otherwise we too can end up like Hunter Thomson, or Sick Rick over here.
We have to operate in the right way. Otherwise the disappointment and cynicism stack up. This can lead to midlife-crises and all kinds of debauchery.
So what does that mean? It means operating with hope, but hope that's grounded in faith.
Guard your heart above all else, knowing that drastic decisions eventually catch up with you.
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