Do you have a [tag]dream?[/tag]  I do.  I dream to be [tag]successful[/tag] in all that I do.  One thing that kept me going through the hard times was a desire to see something happen in my life that was great.  I would say that at least on one occasion holding onto hope was very important.  Having working with a aid organisation for awhile now I can say of the hallmarks of extreme poverty is how people in the slums of the world lose hope.   The dreams they have escape them and the reality of the sounds, smell and feelings of their situation stop them from hoping for something better.   It’s sad to see older people who have given up hope that their dreams will ever come to pass.  Here are some reasons why you should never give up [tag]hope[/tag].

1. Hope is a goal setter

Hope sets the goal for some future event to come to pass.  Whether you [tag]realise[/tag] it or not, you have the power to hope for something better.  When you focus on what’s happening in your life and hope sets in you will begin to dream.  We are all equipped with the mechanisms of hope, so there is no excuse.  Transcending [tag]reality[/tag] is the hard part and I will talk about that in a later post.   You need some kind of goal to set for yourself so hope for something.  Ask yourself this question:  What do you like doing?  Are you doing it?  No?  Why not begin to hope you will?  Set a [tag]goal[/tag] on the inside and begin hoping.  Without the goal how can you ever get anywhere?

2. Hope makes you feel good

Hope can be medicine for your soul.  Are you stuck in a terrible situation.  Begin to hope for things to change.  Recognise what it is that you want to change and begin dreaming about it.  Think about the underlying emotions that rise into your consciousness when you do.   What feelings do you feel?  Doesn’t it make you feel better.  The only problem is staying in that state.  You need to foster hope and make it grow.  You do this by remembering the hope day after day and entertaining it in your imagination.  I do this often and it has helped me tremendously in goals I have achieved and goals I haven’t.  I almost have a PhD which is the result of hoping for something first.  When I began this journey I wasn’t qualified and I should not have been let in.  But I hoped and believed and here I am today.  It all began when I had a dream in my heart of wanting to study more at university.   I will share this story in more detail later on.  There were times when I was studying over the past seven years that I felt I would never emerge out of it in one piece.  But, thank God, I never lost hope that I would emerge out of it with my dream in hand.  What do you dream about?  Begin hoping for it by seeing it in your minds eyes.  Hope for something better.

3. Hope is a template for faith

In the post that follows this one I will explain it in more detail.  Hope sets the goal and provides the template for you to believe.  The power of belief is something everybody has.  You use it to shape and guide your life on a daily basis.  Think of it this way: hope is the blueprint of your dreams whereas belief is the concrete.  What do you dream about?  I dream about a world where communities are transformed from poverty into prosperity.  I dream about things that spontaneously come to me during prayer, my children’s life and those that I teach.  This is not real it’s a dream.  Yet it provides the template for me to want something better in my life.  There is a saying I have heard in Christian circles, ‘hope deferred makes the heart grow sick’ (it comes from the proverbs).  When you lose hope you lose everything.  I have seen the reality of this in people’s life.  What you think about your life and the direction it’s taking is very much the substance of hope.  Everything you are doing is based on it.  If you are a practicing lawyer, doctor, accountant or IT person you once hoped you could do that.  That hope lived in you as a dream.  Now that you are doing it, you no longer hope for what you have.  Yet, if you didn’t hope in the first place you would have had to template to form a belief in you and you would have thrown it all away.

4. Hope builds optimism for the future

A very close friend of mind said it this way, ‘hope is faith in the future’.  I like that.  Hope is [tag]faith[/tag] that at same point you will be experiencing a future dream.  Whatever it is that you want to do if you hope for it, see it and begin to expect it you will eventually have it.   You cannot reach your dreams if you don’t have one.  You cannot build a better life if you don’t think about what it is you want and hope like crazy.  Will you get it if you hope for it?  No, but you will begin to move towards it and without that you will never get your dreams.  Hope is the substance we use to lay down a blueprint for the future.  It’s the part of us that was born into us or discovered as we grew older and it’s the real us surfacing up from underneath letting us know that we are really there.    Today, why don’t you begin to hope and see what you find in your heart.

Remember what you see is not always what is real.  Hope forms a firm foundation for the future actions you wish to take.  If you don’t do it… then your life will resemble pretty much what it does at present.