Why do we hope?

Hope and where does it come from?

So much of the Bible talks about hoping for Jesus to return, when everything will be good and all the evil will be banished. There’s hope for Heaven, because there’s got to be some point of living a good life, right?

But why, why do we always hope that there is a better tomorrow or a better future? Why do we assume that good will prevail and evil will be banished? Why is everyone saying that we should be optimistic, that we should not lose hope? People talk about karma and how what goes around comes around. But could it also be that everything is just random? Is it okay to just accept that we have absolutely no control over what happens and that all we can do is do our best with what we are given?

I think it’s getting little old, the whole “it’ll get better” or “tomorrow will be a better day”. There’s a point where having hope for the future stops us from living in the present. We are always investing for the future, grinding now so we can reap the rewards later. But we aren’t guaranteed a future, let alone a better one. But we have today.

I propose for acceptance to be the goal instead of hope. To accept the things I am given, the cards I’m dealt. To accept the randomness of life and events that happen. To accept the things I have no control over and to focus on the things that are within my control. To accept that I can do the best I can and be the best version of me, that I can be kind and loving without hoping that I’ll get some good in return.

Acceptance gives you the option to be pleasantly surprised when good things happen, without setting you up for disappointment when things don’t go your way. Acceptance acknowledges both possibilities without dismissing one end of the spectrum. Hope likes to dismiss disappointment and despair but you know, just because you close your eyes and refuse to see it doesn’t make it less real.

(This Youtube-ad-esque seamless transition was unexpected - it made me smile.)

Just because we can't see it doesn’t mean it’s not real

Having grown up in the city, it’s rare that I get to see many stars thanks to light pollution. And so when I’m abroad and somewhere where there’s open space, I always marvel at the stars I see in the sky. It always felt special to me, and I would be content just to lie there and gaze at the stars and marvel at the vastness of the universe. I have so many fond memories of star-gazing that I hold close to my heart.

When we finally understand something we didn’t before, we exclaim “I see!”, almost using seeing and understanding interchangeably in this context. But the thing is, there are 200 billion trillion stars out there, and just because I only see maybe 10 where I live, or a few thousand when I’m abroad, doesn’t mean that the ones I can’t see don’t exist. I know they’re there, even though I can’t see them all. So why is it that we find it so hard to believe in what we cannot see?

The Bible also talks mentions this a bunch, a few examples:

For we walk by faith, not by sight. - 2 Corinthians 5:7

Jesus said to him, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” - John 20:29

For a long time I feel like I used science as a reason to dismiss religion. Because how can you physically turn water into wine? What kind of surface tension are we talking about that would allow a person to walk on water? How can you give birth to a child without sperm fertilizing the egg? How can the dead come back to life?

But now I feel like I no longer hold these facts as a weapon or a line of defense. We definitely know a lot about the world, but we are so far from knowing everything. The things we understand and deem “possible” now have to confine to the limits of our current knowledge and understanding. Yes it’s hard to believe in what you have never seen with your own eyes, but at the same time that is also not a good reason to claim with any degree of certainty that it doesn’t exist. Would seeing me help me believe? Probably. But that also doesn’t necessarily have to translate to “I haven’t seen it, so it can’t possibly exist”. I guess I just leave a little room for the possibility that a loving God is out there doing His thing, watching over us.

Do you make things happen, or do things happen to you?

Honestly I was struggling a bit with today’s sermon. I think I would group the sermons into two main categories - ones that lecture you on how you should live according to the Bible, and ones that encourage you to reflect on how the teachings of the Bible can apply to your daily life.

As someone who’s had a fair share of the former, it’s so easy to start zoning out. I try not to, and I try to reframe things myself and actively ask myself questions, but it’s hard. But then the mention of exams came up and as someone deep into exam preparation it jolted my attention.

到考試的那一刻，你有合格的希望，還是希望合格？
Are you going in to pass, or are you going in hoping to pass?

This question is not new to me, a dear friend asked me this before. But it really got me thinking - do I want to be the kind of person that makes things happen, or the kind of person that just hopes for things to happen them? Am I steering the ship or am I just letting the waves take me along for the ride?

I want to be the kind of person who makes things happen. I want to be someone who is confident, someone who is sure. I want to be ready to embrace opportunities when they come my way instead of shying away because I wasn’t prepared. Embracing the uncertainties of life isn’t giving up, it’s putting in the work so that if opportunities come along, you are ready to grab them.

It’s so easy to just lament and mope - there are always things that are unfortunate in life. But if you don’t hope and you don’t expect those things to happen, can you in turn turn that freedom into agency and start building a life that you want instead of waiting for things to be handed to you?

I want to be able to go into the exam and show them that I deserve to pass instead of holding onto hope the same way you do with a raffle ticket. At the end of this life, I want to walk up to the gates of Heaven and know that I’ve lived a life worthy of being granted entrance, instead of hoping that I’ll just scrape by. I want to be more intentional with my life, to captain this ship and set sail with higher goals in mind.