"So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love." (1 Corinthians 13:13)
Hope. I wonder why I seldom hear a sermon preached on hope. But even if it was preached it would be dismissed as something too abstract to me.
It's just so hard to keep hope when difficult situations are thrown at us daily. Looking at the bright side is easier said than done when your life seem to have more downs than ups, and when you're so tired just by the fact that you have to deal with all these inevitable problems (e.g. exams, work, studies, exams, assignments, sickness, exams, chores - did I mention exams already?). I may be digressing.
Somewhere along the line, we may have lost hope. When people fail us, when we start to lose faith in humanity, when we ourselves fail, and when we are affected by people who gave up on hope. Two of the biggest hope-killers are being ridiculed for having hope, and having nothing results from the hope we had for so long. Slowly we would start to expect less (a.k.a being pessimistic) so that our disappointment will be as minimal as possible the next time things don't happen the way we want it to.
Then I came across a devotional, about a story of boy pulled out of a rubble a week after the Haiti earthquake hit. He was thought to be dead, but his mother refused to believe that and so was searching continuously for her son until she thought she heard a faint cry from her son from under the rubble; she had to convince the rescue team to help her, and sure enough, they pulled out her son - alive, although severely dehydrated. Isn't it safe to say that his mother's hope was what kept him alive?
Eventhough we may not see the work God is doing, never give up hoping. It may just save a person's life.
