Hope

Hope is dangerous.

Hope is a wonderful thing. Hope gives some a way to visualize their dreams. Hope has started revolutions, raised nations from destruction, allowed athletes and armies to overcome insurmountable deficits. Hope has given some the will to live, when they were long overdue for death. Hope has helped untold thousands overcome what others thought was impossible. Hope is the breath of survival. Hope opens the door to the impossible. Hope is dangerous.

Hope also opens the door to disappointment. When we hope for something, really place our emotions into this thing we are hoping will come to pass we open the door to be crushed. Is there anything more shattering to our psyche than to have our hope snuffed. Hope breeds excitement, excitement breeds expectations, and expectations breed more hope. Hope can snowball like that, the more hope we have the more hope we get. Unfortunately the more hope we have, the deeper the disappointment if hope does not win out. To hope is to risk. To risk is to possibly suffer pain. The more hope, the more risk, potentially the more pain. How many times can we hope and fail before we give up all hope?

So what are we to do?

Snuff out all hope to avoid potential pain? The life without hope is the life of no passion, no dream, no....hope. Without hope there is no future to look forward to. Without hope all that matters is what has already happened and what is happening right now.

Some might choose the life of no hope, and thus face no risk. Real life chooses to hope, to risk, and to reap the disappointment or the joy from that risk. Hope in the Bible is coupled with faith and love. Faith and hope are very close cousins. But love seems more distant until you realize that love is what allows us to continue when hope is lost.

College, the best years of your life?

This was written with the college aged reader in mind. I originally wrote it in 2005, but it's relevant as many of my friends head off to college.

 You, like me, have probably heard the phrase, "College is the best time of your life".  I want to run an idea by you.  Here it is.....If college is really the best years of your life, then you have a pretty crappy life.  Let me explain what I mean. 

If you are in college from the ages 18-22, then you still have 60+ years to live. If the next 60+ years don't compare to 4 or 5 years you spent in college, didn't your life peak kinda early?  Isn't everything after college kind of a let down?  If you get the idea that college is the best time of your life from older people who look back and think that, I would suggest that those older people are suffering from a mid-life crisis of some sort, and at the very least they are the type of person you may not want to emulate. 

I am not saying that college shouldn't be great.  It should. It should be the best years of your life..... so far.  Just as high school was hopefully better than junior high. But why settle for peaking at the age of 22?  Why not make your 20's even better than college? Why not make your 30's better than your 20's and so on. I've been in my 30's for almost 9 years now and I have to say, they are pretty awesome. I had an incredible college experience. I loved all of it except for the tests and overly long papers.  I made great friends that I still talk to and hang out with. I'm still in close contact with my 16 best college guy friends. We get together for a weekend every year. We hang out, share whats going on, and pray for one another, and basically stay up all night and laugh, just like when we were in college. My prayer for you as a college student is that you will make friends like that in school. Friends who will be with you for the rest of your life. Friends who will stand up to you when you are wrong. Friends who will stand by you when you are hurt, and friends who will point you to the one thing that is more important than anything else...... Christ.