A Future with Hope

Every time I have started a job the new company always paints a rosy picture of what my future might look like.

Every cancer patient holds onto an image of what their future might be like when they are cancer-free.

Every parent pictures a bright future for their newborn child.

Every college grad dreams of their future earnings potential and professional career tract with great hope.

Hope abounds. 

John C. Maxwell says this:  “The average person can live only four seconds without hope.”

And so we hope. 

     

     And so we dream. 

Victor Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning and a survivor of the Nazi death camps, concluded this; “Man can only live by looking into the future.” 

The great human need is a need for a purpose.  We are “purpose driven” people.  Give us a mission and it will prolong life.  Take away hope and we shrivel and die for lack of a drink from the purpose pool.

Those few who had the opportunity to survive the Nazi work and death camps did so because they clung to hope for future happiness and fulfillment.

One of the great verses of scripture is found in Jeremiah 29:11.  It is a verse to which I have clung often in my lifetime.  It is full of hope and great comfort. 

“For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord.  I have plans for your welfare and not for harm, because I offer you a future with hope.”

~PMB paraphrase

My future and yours is still unfolding, and so we hope.

We aren’t perfect yet, therefore we hope.

We aren’t well today, however, we hope.

We don’t make the big bucks so far, but the big deal is just around the corner.

We hope. 

          We hope. 

                    We hope.

What is hope?  Seeds - simply seeds that we HOPE will grow into our future.

   Seeds of expectation

      Seeds of trust

         Seed of anticipation

            Seeds of wishes

And then we ask:  “How can you have hope when the world is in such chaos?  Don’t you see the wars and rumors of wars, the strife, the battle over territorial rights in every corner of our globe?  Are you crazy?  You have hope with all that is going on?”

And my answer is still this – “YES, for I have a promise from on high.  The God I know has given His word.  His personal guarantee is “a future with hope”.

Be encouraged today.

P Michael Biggs

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