by Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, I’ve been thinking a lot about hope lately, in particular, what hope does humanity have in times such as these?
I decided to search the internet for two perspectives different from my own regarding hope.
The first one I found is from a Muslim blogger who shared his perspective on hope as it relates to his faith. He quoted 3 separate verses from the Quran and came to this conclusion: hope comes in the form of balancing good with bad. In other words, in the Muslim faith, your eternal hope comes as a result of your actions.
You hope that your good deeds outweight your bad ones, so that you earn your way to heaven.
In the Buddhist view, hope for life after death also depends on personal choice and attitude. If you are a good person in this life, your rebirth into a new body will be better than the first. If you were not a good person in this life just the opposite will happen.
If you’re REALLY good, you have hope to achieve nirvana, which breaks the cycle of birth/rebirth and you get to see the world as it really is.
The Christian view also takes into consideration our behaviour, but not in terms of eternal life.
The three primary teachings of the Christian Bible are: 1) eternal life is a gift from God and it depends solely on whether we believe Christ paid the price for our bad behaviour, 2) God treats us like any loving father deals with his kids on earth and, 3) things are going to be tough here on earth, whether you’re Christian or you aren’t.
Three years ago, I was clearing brush on our property, preparing a spot for my wife’s two greenhouses. It was a damp, drizzly day. As I cut and piled brush, occasionally wiping beads of sweat and rain off my nose and eyelids, I was thinking about the verse “suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character, and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint.”
I thought, “God, I understand the part about suffering and perseverance, but…hope in what? What doesn’t disappoint?”
Immediately, a thought came to my mind, “Hope in Me.”
Our spiritual lives can be the hardest part of life to navigate. There are so many choices and it causes so much turmoil in this world. If you’re going through a period of suffering and searching for hope…don’t stop.
Earnestly seek it, and IT will find YOU.
