A Hope Worth Fighting For

So sorry it's been so long since my last post! I've recently been spending a lot of time reading my Bible and studying what it has to say about hope. A few times I have tried starting to write a post about what I've been learning, but I was surprised at how difficult I found it to string my words together. The topic of hope in the Bible is so large once you really start looking at it and it's difficult to try and explain within one simple post. Nonetheless, I plan on trying my best!

Often times when people talk about hope in The Lord, they will go to the verses in the Bible that speak about the great delight found in having it. I think that these are incredibly encouraging and I love reading them, but I never realized that there are many verses that also talk about how difficult it is to have hope.

I think that Psalm 42 gives an amazing example of this. In the first few verses, David speaks about his desire for God to make himself evident and his frustration with what is going on in his life. Saying, " My tears have been food day and night, while people say to me all day long, 'Where is your God?' " I think that the feelings David was experiencing are very relatable. Many of us go through times where we feel God is distant and don't understand what he is doing. 

However the Psalm doesn't just stop there. David continues on to say, "Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed with me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God." He reassures himself that he must continue to hope in God and that even though he may not understand what God is doing, he will praise him regardless.

I think that we can learn a lot from David in this Psalm. We are never promised that having hope will be easy, but we are promised that God holds the only hope that will truly fulfill us. Money, family, friends, etc. are all things that people put their hope into. And although none of them are necessarily "bad" things, when our hope is placed in them we will always be let down. God is the only source of hope that can truly fill us up, even when times get tough."

True Hope

A large part of this project for me has become about where different people place their hope. I have always known where my hope has been placed, but I wanted to know more about those around me. As I have continued to learn more I have been extremely reassured that the place I have chosen to place my hope is the one that is true. I have seen people place their hope in many different things. Relationships, money, politics, you name it. But the only thing I have ever seen completely fill someone up with hope is The Lord God. It is said in Psalm 62:5 "Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him." This is a perfect description of what hope in God looks like. Although times aren't always going to be easy, we can find the rest so many search for because we place our hope in God and trust that he has plans for us.

So as I continue to go further in this project I have decided to start focusing less on different kinds of hope and more on the one true hope. I am looking forward to diving deeper into scripture and truly learning what having hope in The Lord looks like.

Hope for a Better World

I believe that every person has hope that there will be a better world. Each and every person, no matter who they are, have a picture in their mind of what they believe would be a better world. Whether that is no war, more laughter, less pain, etc. Whatever is it is and whether we have consciously thought about it or not, we have pictured it. From what I have learned from my mentor and my own personal opinion, I have concluded that our hope's for a better world can be generally categorized into three views.

The first is the view that is held by those who believe in what the Bible teaches. This is the belief that our hope does not need to be and will not be found on this earth. That this world cannot live up to the hope we have of peace and harmony. They believe our hope does not need to be found on earth because our better world will be found after we die and enter into heaven.

The second view is one that is held by those who believe there will be no life after death (afterlife). That when we die we will be put into the ground and lose all existence. Because they believe their life will end at death they have hope that this world could get better before they reach the point of death. They believe that there is a chance that the world leaders will begin to get along and that there could be an end to war, world hunger etc. They must place their hope in this earth because they believe there is nothing after it.

The third view is also held by those who believe there will be no life after death. Although similar to the second view in this sense, the third view has the largest difference from the others. This is because, those who have this view do not believe that their hope will be fulfilled. Although they are trying to hold on to the belief that this world can change, their hope is slowly slipping through their finger tips. As they watch the horror going on in this world they begin to realize that their chances of receiving the world they long for are very slim.

Whatever view we hold their is one thing that we all have in common. We all hope that we could live in a better world and have a view of the "good life" that we desire to reach.

My Mentor

The person I have asked to be my mentor for this project is a man named Mark Berg. To me however, he has always just been Mr. Berg. When I was in elementary school, Mr. Berg was my sixth grade teacher. Although that was six years ago I can still remember many of the things that Mr. Berg taught me. He helped me grow so much in that one year and made me realize for the first time that my faith was something I couldn't just rely on my parents for, this was something that needed to be my own. So often Mr. Berg helped me without even realizing it. His extreme love for God and those around him always encouraged me to be better. He is an amazing man of God and his passion for learning the scriptures is absolutely incredible. I chose him as my mentor because I greatly admire his opinion and his knowledge of the Bible's teachings. I believe there is a lot more that I can learn from Mr. Berg and I am looking forward to hearing all he has to say about hope. I'm eager to learn what it means to him personally and his interpretation of what the Bible speaks about. I am also really excited just to be able to sit down and speak with him again after so many years.

/hōp/

So often we use a word very frequently in our day to day lives, yet don't completely understand its meaning. I think hope is one of these words. As you can imagine I hear the word hope very often. Yet because it is said as my name, I seldom think about what is means as a word in itself. I figured it was time to do so.

hope/hōp/

noun a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen. a feeling of trust. There are two different meanings of the word hope. As seen above, one meaning is "a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen." We've all experienced this kind of hope. As a young child, waking up on Christmas morning wishing so hard that what you wanted is wrapped  underneath the tree. As a teenager wanting that cute boy in english to like you back so badly. Or maybe as an adult just praying that you can scrape up the rent money for the coming week. We've all hoped for things in our lives, whether they are big or small. However, the second meaning of hope is one that I'm not sure everyone has experienced to it's full extent. This meaning is described as "a feeling of trust". At some point in our lives, most of us have heard someone say "you can trust me" or even been the one to say that we have trust in someone else. Yet this doesn't necessarilly mean that we have all felt complete trust. This meaning of hope is describing what seems to be a complete contentment in what is going on around us because we have trust in someone or something. Now this hope can be put into many different things. Maybe someone puts this hope in someone else, a friend, family member or loved one. Maybe even themselves. We can also put our hope into something we believe is higher then ourselves. Muslims's put their hope in Alah, Buddhist's in Buddha, Hindu's in karma, and Christian's in Jesus Christ (Son of God). Whether we realize it or not, we have all put out hope in something. Now whether this is true hope or not is the real question.

Why Choose Hope?

A few years back I was asked by my teacher why my parents named me Hope. I was slightly ashamed of the fact that I didn't know the answer to her question. So that evening I went to my mom and asked her. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that my name had so much meaning to her and that her and my dad hadn't just chose the name because they liked it. The other day I decided to ask my mom again. I'm older then I was back then and figured that I might be able to comprehend her explanation a bit more now. Sure enough, after hearing her reasoning, it meant a lot more to me then it did back then. I never fully appreciated how amazing it truly was.

She had told me that when she was thinking about having another child (I have an older brother who was born a year and a half before me) she was terrified to bring one into this world. Not because she couldn't take care of the first one or didn't feel she could love another, but purely for the reason of believing that the world wasn't a great place for someone to be born into.

#184915933 / gettyimages.com

After a little while of thinking this way God made it very to clear to her that if she wasn't having a child for the sake of fear, than she wasn't putting her hope in God and trusting in his abilities of taking care of one. It was pointed out to her that she was basically saying that Satan was stronger than God and she was allowing him to control her choices instead of having faith in God's ability to care for her child. She described this as the moment in her life where God had most revealed himself to her. She had never been more sure that it was God she was hearing and no one else. She knew that this was coming from him, and him alone.

As my mom was flipping through her Bible one day she came across Romans 5:1-5 (specifically verses 2 and 5). She had read these verses before, but was beginning to see it in a whole new light. Verse 5 says "And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." This made her realize that if we put our hope in the Lord, he will not disappoint us. More specifically that if she put her hope in the Lord to take care of her child, he would not disappoint her.

A couple months later, my parents found out that they were pregnant with another child. As her pregnancy went on she had the usually simple stresses that come along with it, but she said she felt calm and confident in the fact that God had a plan, and he knew what he was doing. As the due date got closer my parents made the decision that if they were to have a girl, they would name her Hope. This would be a symbol of their obedience to the Lord as they proclaimed that all their hope was in him and not in the ways of this world. This would be a daily reminder to them of where their hope lyes. And it is.

About My Passion Project

For this passion project I have decided to study the meaning of hope. Now some may consider this odd because of the fact that although hope is a word, it is also my name. At some point every person has thought about what their name means. However my name is quite a bit more complex then just simply a definition you can find in a baby names book. There are many different ways that people view hope. A particular contrast between two interpretations is the secular view of hope meaning simply to wish for something, saying " I hope I recieve that gift." and the Christian view of hope and putting your "hope in the Lord." But what does putting hope in the Lord even mean? Can't you put your hope into earthly things as well? These are just a few of the things I plan on learning more about as I progress through this project. I am specifically going to be looking at the Biblical meaning of hope and what the Bible says about where our hope should be placed.

I'm really looking forward to learning more about the meaning of hope and receiving a full grasp on what the word is truly expressing. I'm also really excited to find out more about why my parents chose the name hope and what meaning it holds for them. As you can imagine I have heard the word hope many times in my life time, but I'm really hoping (no pun intended :p ) to gain a different view on it as I research and learn more about it throughout this project.