Raymond Van Neste
SAVING LIVES
In an article that I wrote in 2007 and published on this website about hope entitled: Orbis: Sight Saving and Life Saving, I described how hope is something that has a powerful driving force and potential to help people in hospital or people who are suffering in one way or another to not only overcome illness but to beat the odds which are stacked up against them. From this perspective hope saves lives.
A FALSE PROMISE?
I read an article recently where somebody argued that whilst they did not disregard the power of hope to give people a purpose especially in dire situations to keep going it is nevertheless useless. It's okay to be conscientious and full of hope but then how is it possible for that hope to be sustained? It's a false promise and a dead end!
Upon reading this I'm sad that somebody would relate to hope in this way and dismiss its power so easily. It s a proven fact that people who have no hope for the future have accordingly no reason to live. If somebody initially has hope it is undermining of their position to assume that they will lose their vision and need of having some kind of hope for the future.
MAKING THINGS HAPPEN
Hope is not only a word it's much much more! it's a state of mind and of being, of understanding that okay something might not be happening right now but it can still happen later on and I hope it will! Having such a state of mind puts in to motion the forces that make things happen. A disposition of hopefulness literally works miracles.
Norman Vincent Peale in his many books argues over and over again that what we hope for we get. He cites examples of many of his clients and friends who at different stages of their lives had given in to negative thought processes. Each day they confirmed within themselves that the worst was going to happen, it's going to be a bad day today, I can feel it! I'm going to miss the bus and my boss will crazy as usual! Indeed, what was expected actually happened.
'We are what we think' is basically a truth worth considering so that whenever you feel hopeless in any situation in your life, counter the negative life draining thought with a positive one and you'll see, maybe not immediately but at some stage coming-up things will change for the better.
HOPE AND REALITY
And so, whenever, I hear or read about what is happening around the world politically, wars and famine, terrible suffering and injustice, I can if I want to not only be sad but equally have great hope that things will change. This is the beginning of the use of spiritual power. It's the actual decision to not give in to gloom and doom. I can't do anything to change the world but I have the power to hope and to pray!
Raymond Van Neste. Hope or Fear? Copyright 2009 ©