By Leland Pulley
Hope is more than wishful thinking or a mere desire for something better in your life. Hope is a real force for good in the lives of individuals and groups. It can transform bad into good, failure into success, and low self-esteem into confidence in oneself. Hope is a bright light that helps us to find our way into the future and produce a better world than we have today.
I have many hopes and here are some examples. I want to live beyond ninety years old and with reasonably good health too. I hope my children will be happily married adults and have grandchildren. I want to write good material that will edify and uplift people. I hope to continue making friends in our neighborhood. As a citizen, I hope that we will find a better way to provide for health care and a fairer retirement system for all Americans. In the world, I hope that the forces of good will increase and thus lead to greater dialogue, fairer trade, and more peace. I hope to see America remain strong and free so other countries can follow her example.
Consider some of the things you hope for in your life. They can range from personal desires to family goals to business success to improvements in society. The more confident and successful you are as an individual, the more you can turn hopes into reality.
How does hope work? In essence you exercise faith in something or someone. (Faith in this sense is a principle of action and not strictly a religious term.) You then act on that faith by getting involved, committing resources, and putting forth effort to reach your goal. As you sustain your efforts, you will slowly bring about the positive results you desire. In the process your hope is being reinforced and begins to be confirmed. When the goal has been achieved, your faith in that thing is dead for you now have replaced faith with knowledge via your success. You no longer have faith you can do something or obtain something because you have demonstrated that you can, and this knowledge replaces faith. In the process your hope has been realized. You can now move on with greater faith and bigger hopes and accomplish more things in the future.
Without some hope, little faith is exercised by people. They stay in the same mode of living and less progress is made by them. However, as hope leads to faith being exercised, and then is confirmed by it, the individual increases his power to hope for even greater things in his life. His vision enlarges. His expectations go up. His power to do good for himself and others goes up. He can have more hopes and more dreams without being labeled as a mere dreamer or idealistic person.
Hope helps us to be more optimistic. It helps us to get through troubled times until good times come. It sustains us when major problems occur and obstacles are placed in our pathway in life. Yes, hope can be such a wonderful and powerful force for good in our lives. I challenge you to have hope in many things and many people. Put forth the effort to turn your hopes in realities.
Key Words – hope, faith, goal, knowledge, progress, optimistic, powerful force for good
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