The World Needs More Hope!

I had the most amazing time this weekend! I truly wanted to go to the movies, just for something to do, and to share a big bucket of popcorn with my incredible husband Steve. Since there wasn't much playing in the way of family friendly movies, we opted to go see Tomorrowland with George Clooney and Hugh Laurie. If you haven't seen it, I would highly recommend it. 100% family friendly and much better than the trailer would lead you to think.

In it, a young girl is fascinated with the stars and what lies beyond what we can see. Her father, Tim McGraw, is a NASA engineer who is tearing down Cape Canaveral since the space program has ended and once that is done he will not have any more work. He is struggling to find his way and support his family which is out of his control. His daughter, Cassie, believes that if she can forestall the dismantling, her father will stay optimistic. She is the force holding her family together and thus the reason she is chosen to receive the "Tomorrowland" pin. It is a way to garner interest to help save the future of Earth. She is selected because she has hope where others see nothing good.

Even George Clooney's character has lost his ability to think anything good will come of the earth and is simply buying his time, waiting for doomsday. Funny when you look around it seems as though those in the world have lost hope as well.

Turn on the news, take a look at your social media feed, look at television or movies or just take a gander around in the world, and you see things spiraling out of control. It made me wonder if perhaps that is Satan's plan for the world to lose hope. To lose faith. To lose our ability to love, like Jesus loves.

What if that was the whole plan all along? What if the things we see are simply manipulated forms of propaganda given to us to lead our world to destruction instead of hope. What if these images and stories are fabricated to lead us to believe there isn't anything left for us but to get what we can while we are still here?

Why is it, that according to the Bible, in 1 Corinthians 13:13 ~ "And now these three remain, faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." (NIV).

What would happen if we simply applied these to our lives every single day. To hope for the best, to do nothing but post positive things that would cause people to believe in the possibility for a better day today. Doesn't the world need more cheerleaders, more builders, more dreamers in the world?
More people to encourage, to inspire, to build people up, but in genuine ways. Wouldn't you gravitate towards that over the alternative? Imagine what the world would be like, if we stopped believing all the negativity and the despair and the lose of hope, and just accepted that nothing will get any better.

It would inspire us to fix things that are broken, to care for people who are hurting, to help those who need it, to love those who are without. This is the world I believe Jesus wanted. Not a world of acceptance, but a world where hope, faith and love are present over everything else.

But we live in a fallen world, where the outcome is destruction of everyone and everything, that God holds dear and that my friend, is you and me and the very world we live in. We are called to spread the good news, the gospel because it contains hope! It contains so much love that the Creator of everything sent His Son to die for us, to restore that blessed hope that we can be saved, changed, forgiven and loved and more so, to spread that to others.

Why have we lost hope?

Where do you find discouragement, despair, hate, anger, isolation, bitterness, resentment, unforgiveness, sadness, and more? What do you do when the dreams you have for today don't work out like you have planned? Do you offer up thanks to God? Perhaps in a cynical manner, but not as a genuine, thanks because it wasn't meant to be.

We know what really LOVE looks like because the Bible tells us.

"Love is patient.

Love is Kind.

It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes and always perseveres. 

Love never fails." ~ 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (NIV).

I would encourage you to consider what God's purpose is for you today. I would hope and pray it would be to be an encourager, a dreamer, a builder, to inspire hope and faith in others, and most importantly to love like only God can love, and to fill you with that love so we can completely and utterly change the world, through a life lived out for Jesus!

We know our "Tomorrowland" exists, that one day, we will return to Heaven, but until that time, let us share the good news that is Jesus Christ to the world in a bold new way!