Perseverance, Character, Hope - The Way of Great Spiritual Life

By Steve Wickham

Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. 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.
~Romans 5:3-5 (NIV).

Hope is the very objective life. Where we have it all the resources of life are otherwise available. Where we don't have it, we struggle for the meaning and purpose of even simply breathing. It is our heavenly contingency.

Hope is ignition - an initiation. It ignites our day with power and powers us through, even through the turbulence as we settle at last at cruising altitude.

Hope is hence also the outcome. Hope is the place we arrive at when our wellbeing is shored up with the positive outlook where the immediate future looks bright. We look forward and we like what we see.

But hope, as far as a faculty of character is concerned, is built - we access hope most consistently when we engage with life in such ways that even in our worst circumstances we can persevere in our suffering; the necessary condition of living this life.

As Paul says above, perseverance produces character, and character, hope.

Hope, once we have it, suggests we have the means of tapping into the Spirit's power, both actively i.e. in this life, and transcendentally i.e. in the next life. We ought to never be just glibly thankful for the Holy Spirit, God's gift of his Presence with us. We know God now.

So, we have both hope and the Spirit's power - and these combined - for wisdom, truth and the power of hope. This hope that does not put us to shame works with the power of God - that we can be saved, in and through Jesus Christ and his work on the cross - the redemption of humankind; the holy and "active" love of God.

When I'm most full of hope all I need is the sunshine or a rainy day... either will do. I'm ensconced with pure delight for life and for the living. Hope speaks of love and joy and grace and peace... a meld of lovely virtue.

When we're hopeful nothing distracts our pure attention. And even if it does distract all distractions are rendered welcome. Hope is home to all things good, peaceable and resplendently "now."

Hope is the mood of the day in the servant of God at home in the Holy Spirit - he that came as proof of the transaction of redemption unto salvation.

Do you know this love of God poured into our hearts via the gift of the Holy Spirit?

Do you know hope, yes, today?

© 2010 S. J. Wickham.

Steve Wickham is a Registered Safety Practitioner (BSc, FSIA, RSP[Australia]) and a qualified, unordained Christian minister (GradDipBib&Min). His blogs are at: http://epitemnein-epitomic.blogspot.com/ and http://inspiringbetterlife.blogspot.com/

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Hang on to Hope

By Scott Wimberly

What does hope mean to you? Do you have hope today? For me hope is the one thing that has kept me going on many occasions. Hope and faith; a strong belief for what is going to happen in our lives; for the good.

There is a verse in the Bible in the Old Testament that says; Return to the stronghold [of security and prosperity], you prisoners of hope; even today do I declare that I will restore double your former prosperity to you (Zec 9:12). The part about security and prosperity are good, but we have to have hope if that is going to take place. I want to encourage you today to become a prisoner of hope.

Under most circumstances when we talk about being a prisoner it's not a good thing, but in this case it is an awesome thing. To be a prisoner of hope to me has meant that no matter the situation I am in that I still believe in hope. There have been times when I only had just a sliver of hope but I stood on it and believed against all odds. When we have hope in what God has told us and planned for our lives then you do have something to stand on. When a person loses hope they lose everything.

No matter what your situation is today; please don't lose hope. Hope may only seem like a little glimmer far off, but focus on it, stand on it, and believe on it. Hope has kept folks alive in the most desperate of situations and it will do the same for you. Hang on hope. Today is your day. Believe that today is going to be your best day ever and tomorrow looks even better.

If you want to discover and live your destiny; go to http://www.scottwimberly.com or contact us at 205-210-9311. There are more resources available for your journey.

Scott Wimberly is a Life Coach/Writer. He writes and coaches about your destiny and purpose. How to take your personal gifts and talents and use them to fulfill and reach your destiny. He is an encourager to all and will assist you in your destiny quest in your life.
He can be reached at http://www.scottwimberly.com

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How to Restore Hope to Your Life

By M. Farouk Radwan

There is no hope

One of my life goals is to motivate people who have lost hope and to help them find it once again. I never depend on positive thinking, affirmations or mere wishes to help people find hope but instead i give them solid facts that proves to them that everything is really possible.

One of the things that makes me feel bad is finding someone who feels completely helpless and who tells me that there is no hope for him and that's why i decided to write this article to show those people that hope is always there.

Why do people lose hope?

Based upon years of experience in coaching people i came across the key points that hold people back and that make them lose hope, if you managed to avoid these key points then you will find hope once again:

* Not understanding how success works: A large percentage of the people who have lost hope don't understand that success can only be achieved after a big number of failures. A person tries once or twice then loses hope completely without understanding that success might be few tries away. Its all about trial an error, that's how we learned how to walk when we were children, that's how we learned to drive a car and that's how success works

* False beliefs: No one can succeed at that age, its so hard to change, i can never quit smoking or life is unfair. False beliefs don't only let people lose hope but they let them believe that they have done their homework!! If you want to regain hope then you must question these false beliefs, find their origins and test them before you believe in them. Most probably you will find that you were living a big lie

* Big ears: One of the funny but sad things i always come across while coaching people is finding someone who has lost hope in doing something that he had never attempted to do before!!! When i ask this person further questions i discovered that he has lost hope because of acquiring the beliefs of his friends, colleagues or parents without even testing them!!!

* Loss of hope: Helplessness and hopelessness are two sides of the same coin. The more you feel that you are not in control of your life the more you will lose hope (provided that you are not optimistic). Learning how to regain control of your life is an essential skill that will allow you to find hope once again

* Self deception and laziness: Sometimes its better to claim that there is no hope than to admit that you didn't try hard enough. Some people who have lost hope never tried hard enough, never dedicated enough resources to achieve their goals and didn't bother to learn the skills that they lack

Hope was always there, the problem is with your mind

Hope is always there but you will never find it before you manage to change your way of thinking and before you take serious actions to improve your life.

Lying in bed and claiming that there is no hope might make you feel comfortable for a short period of time but on the long run it will ruin your life.

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Hope - The Nectar of Life

By Steve Wickham

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.
-Proverbs 13:12 (NIV).

Hopelessness is portrayed cuttingly and faithfully in the image of the The Wall (1979)--a cult classic for all Eighty-ites. It's the story of Pink, the rock star, who lost his father in World War II and struggled for identity during his 1950s childhood, eventually growing to befriend isolation, loneliness, a thousand deferent voices and depression; cut to the heart in dire hopelessness. His father-figures were fantastically inept.

Those marching hammers are a vision cast over the memory of all Baby Boomers and Gen-X's, presumably. We grew to love the images shed and the negative though realistic commentary of life, as it was then, today.

Hopelessness. No light, only darkness. The strange thing is we actually like dark music, dark art. It speaks truth to us. There is a real sense of hopelessness we can all see in life, yet it's our very nature to seek to overcome it. But, it doesn't stop us showing up and sitting there in sorrowful nostalgia, even for a moment's respite.

Hope is the nectar of life. It nourishes and lubricates. It sees to our plans and puts proper perspective over our doubts. It's filled, of course, by faith--good or bad. We hope, good.

Hope is not hope at all if we see it, yet the very nature of hope takes us necessarily to aconclusion--the realised hope--for no realisation of hope means for us, eventually, a 'sick heart.' Children are noted most especially in this, for a chronic lack of realised hope strikes a wilfully mean blow in the heart of a child. You can see a sarcastic kid has lost his or her sense of real hope in good. And it may never return, if not for a miraculous, God-shaped intervention.

And children grow into independent adults. The trouble is a grown kid, a purveyor of learned helplessness, is an utterly destructive influence on themselves and others--their adult "freedom" sees to it. Their rampant denial, cool crutches and steady grip on insanity sees to it that the curses they're betwixt with are propagated on their very generation--to any innocent, vulnerable one around them.

Of course, this is stereotypical.

There's something that just has to be said. The world trades in a fake hope, evidently, and hopelessness is covered over for the 'wide way' of Western life. All manner of drug or drink or substance or vice-shaped activity is used by the millions to "install" imitation hope. And it's a very poor, deathly imitation of the real thing.

The cause for hope in this generation is only as urgent as it's always been. It's urgent!

A longing fulfilled is a tree of life, and as a tree we imagine life profuse with--what can we say--life. Each branch, each leaf, each relationship, each situation... teeming with life and positive energy.

Hope is the one thing behind all this life. We sow hope everywhere we can, simply. The need's urgent!

© 2010 S. J. Wickham.

Steve Wickham is a Registered Safety Practitioner (BSc, MSIA, RSP) and a qualified, unordained Christian minister (GradDipBib&Min). His blogs are at: http://tribework.blogspot.com/ and http://inspiringbetterlife.blogspot.com/

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What the Chinese Symbol Hope Tattoo Design Means

By John J. Phillips

Nowadays people use the word hope a lot. "I hope this happens, I hope that works well, etc." Hope can be said in all sorts of ways and has a few meanings. The Chinese Symbol Hope has three meanings in Chinese hope to Buddha or god, willing to, cautious and honesty. Of course the symbol itself is frankly a little difficult for the inexperienced to write. As the Chinese Symbol Hope needs a few strokes of the pen. Although there is a modern version of the symbol there is also a traditional version as well.

With a stroke of the pen or brush one can create art. Some might think of Chinese Symbols as art while others do not and that is completely okay. Art can take many forms. With symbols it is visual or literary arts. One can make astounding symbols and on another page they could draw something like a home with the front door having some sort of banner saying "hope' in the Chinese symbols. Paintings inside or writing your name in Chinese symbols and keeping it in your room or somewhere around the house. One can do a lot of things with such art.

Normally one would use the symbols along with others to make the statement understandable. Chinese symbols are used in groups so they can form a meaning other than a single character itself. Together they can empower the main word or amplify what it is directing to. Of course if you are not able to understand what the symbols mean then you should probably study them to get a clear picture of what it stands for. A slight mistake in the character writing can have the reader utterly confused on what its context is. And the reader could make a mistake by confusing a symbol for another.

Hope can mean a lot of things for someone. After all there are different meanings for most words out there. Their wishes, hope, and their expectations are part of hope. These days we hope that the economy gets better. Maybe we hope that we get the job that we wanted or hope you ace that test of yours. Mostly everyone has something they wish for. And when they wish for something they hope it would happen. As it is with others, branding themselves with the Chinese symbol for hope is a way to keep that hope alive.

A tattoo is all about individualism. Take that away and you just have ink. That's why you want a tattoo design that looks amazing now and in the future.

Check out my site now for some great free tips, information, designs and product reviews

John Phillips

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Hope - A Ray of Light

By Ethan Hill

When everything seems to end and the picture is very dark, when life seems to have lost its meaning and there is nothing more to do, when we are besieged by forces superior to ours, there is hope as the final appeal for a new direction, lift yourself up and go straight ahead and renew efforts to fulfill the mission assigned for life.

Hope is a trigger. It triggers in us a desire to fight, a special mood to deal with each of the daily activities which are even more difficult. It allows us to acquire a strong desire to move forward when we leave our forces and the will to abandon our dreams even when the road is a hill almost impossible to overcome.

Hope is a very exciting life than the lot and it revives hope of others too and hope is to get a spark going in to work and send the force behind an ideal. In practical work one move and act because we hope to reach somewhere, to achieve a goal of reaching a particular goal or realizing a dream.

Hope helps us to endure certain moments in life that threatens to challenge the body and the shattered morale. It also provides comfort as a balm on the wound and helps us to pass these moments of anguish in which everything seems to end what we can not resist.

According to the dictionary, hope is a mood in which we are possibly presented what we want.

It brings hope to have a hope in the present and a firm expectation in the future and has a close relationship with faith. Hope is a desire and the firm belief that this will become a reality. When we have faith than hope takes hold of our belief that our desire has already been granted. Believing is the basis of hope and conviction and certainty is the basis of faith.

Faith has the benefit that leads us to regard it as a living god, to his word as true without any doubt. Hope gives us room for a fight with our own strengths and talents in pursuit of what God has promised us and rejoice because crop sowing itself and its creator, renews our hope and refreshes the daily journey we will see ourselves face with new and unfamiliar events.

Hope inspires us further into a life of purity and perseverance and it is needed to restore balance after every trip or to get up after every fall.

Hope heals the soul of a person who is certain to be disappointed and a faithful friend who never leaves us nor disappoints us. We must get it, create it, adhere to it and defend it from those who have been lost by trying to discredit it.

Hope is the bridge by which God tends to us when the wind blows against the obstacles preventing us to see his glory. This is the final appeal that the Creator placed at our disposal when it seemed that we did not have any resources at our disposal.

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The Fallacy in Hope

By Preetu Misra

It is generally believed that hope is a good thing. It drives people on, it's the ray of light when things are dark and so on and so forth. I do not pretend to agree with the thought as it is too convenient and also tends to build an aura of lethargy that is very difficult to overcome. Hope is not a good thing if you are absolutely sure that you have exhausted all your means for achieving whatever it is that you want to achieve. Perhaps the idea has its uses when one has reached rock bottom and there is absolutely nothing left to lose. This is the situation when things can only get better. Even then, you see, it is more a matter of inevitability, than of hope.

Often after great achievements, people will tell you stories of difficulties overcome with grit on the strength of hope. I agree as far as grit is concerned but I would like to know whether these people were sitting idle in the face of difficulties or not. There must have been enormous efforts that actually helped ride past the crisis to reach the goal. If you argue that sometimes, even efforts are not enough and in the face of continuous failure you need something else, then it is my opinion that the only thing you need is time. A great amount of hope without the support of practical means will simply lead to the dilution of effort that is necessary. Put in very straightforward terms, 'hope' is the name that people unwittingly give to their immense believe in 'luck', and the idea that theirs might turn.

Ironically, there is some truth in the idiom 'hoping against hope'. Defined as 'To hope with little reason or justification' it actually explains my basic tenet in this discussion. Even hope is actually without logic. When you know that you have taken your exam badly, you hope that you are going to pass, that you might even do well. What you are actually wishing for is some error in evaluation without thinking that it might adversely affect the result of a deserving candidate. When you know that a patient is suffering from a condition that is fatal, you hope that there might be a miracle. True, medical miracles happen, but that is not because you have hoped for it. It is because medical professionals are extremely competent and can at times work out marvels in curative treatment. So instead of hoping, you should make sure that you get in touch with the right people at the right time.

I have a strong feeling that hope is something that does not let people come to terms with real facts of life. It is an impediment in the road to moving on. So and so will understand, such and such will regret, he or she will appreciate. Well, in all probabilities they will not. Human beings do not change so easily. So it is much better to accept that there is no hope where there is no reason and let things be. If you want people to understand, you have to prove your point. That necessitates taking an effort, not just basking in the futility of hope.

Preetu is a contributed writer for Batchmates.com the largest Alumni portal in India. With her research work and articles she has added an additional edge to the entertainment e-magazine BM Times. Her articles reach to millions of readers every day which are varied in subjects.

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