Hope is defined, per a quick Google search, as the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best.
So hope is by definition forward-looking. No matter what point we are at in our lives, when we are hoping about something we are thinking about the future.
I believe that all of us live our lives in the hope of things to come… Hope keeps us going. We hope that:
- we will get that promotion one day
- the threat of ISIS stays well away from our homes
- our children will grow up to be what we perceive as successful
- our next triathlon event time will be a bit quicker
- the results from that medical test will show we are healthy
- life would once again be like it was when we were growing up and all things just seemed ‘right’
I’m sure most of us can resonate with at least a few examples listed above. But if you give these examples (and many others you can think of) a little thought, you’ll quickly realise that these things we place our hope in, given enough time, will eventually fail us.
This may seem rather morbid, but we know that as time passes each of us by, our minds and bodies are slowly but surely breaking down. A time will come when we will no longer be able to take part in sporting events, our mind will no longer be as sharp as it once was, ailments and sickness will become more of the norm, and ultimately death will be a reality. We have become masters at avoiding the topic of our impending death. We all know it is a certainty in this life, yet we make jokes about the topic and shrug it off as if it’ll never happen to us.
But what if there was a hope that the end of this life wasn’t the end of the story. What if this life was just the first chapter of an eternal journey… That only showed us glimpses of things to come. What if the life to come would be one where all our tears were wiped away, where we would be filled with joy beyond our understanding, where we would always be loved and completely accepted…?
What if receiving that hope was as simple as just believing that one person had already done everything for us to be assured of that life to come..?
As CS Lewis said, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”