You truly can't live without hope.
Hope is indeed the driving catalyst of life. You don't raise your children with the expectation they'll turn out to be hooked on crack without a job. You don't go to work without the expectation of being paid and advancing somewhere. You don't wait for that email from that cute girl without the expectation of going out with her. Finally, you don't hold out in a concentration camp without the expectation of freedom.
It's ironic in life we live by faith on a daily basis because regardless if you are religious in nature or not, deep within us we long for differenct results, or change. We are built to long for something better.
Yet, if you take God entirely out of the picture and admit life is so much you can control you are living by faith everyday.
Living without hope will kill you - read about former concentration camp prisoners who died simply because they lost the expectation of getting out. Their hope was killed. Or today, people applying for jobs and being turned down hundreds of times are now depressed because they concluded it's over.
When it's 'over' your heart dies.
There must always be hope. Our previous U.S. election was about that. People were tired of the war, the economy and wanted change. They hope for something better.
But there's only so much a man can do. Even the president of the United States cannot lift you out of a personal family grief or even a lost job.
The real question is: what is the true Promiser of humanity's hope? Presidents die and at best your hope is eight years. Companies change and your hope of retirement is gone. Troubles come and boy, do they - where's hope when personal trials and grief rolls in like a tidal wave?
Fact is we need hope. We live by hope.
That's why on a daily basis I EXPECT change and that expectation's strength is only as good as the person you put your faith into. It can't be temporary. No one buys a life insurance policy for five years and nobody makes retirement plans that works until you're seventy.
We need lasting hope, I know I do. I can't live with a mere ten years of hope or even twenty. Life would be depressing.
How about hope that last for an eternity?
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. 1 Peter 1:3