When Hope Isn’t Enough . . .
Try Faith & Love
— 1 Corinthians 13:13
On Sundays, we pivot to compelling issues of faith and hope. The goal is for these Sunday posts to rattle around in your brain and eventually resonate in your soul. Faith and hope are some of the most compelling issues of our time and worth pondering carefully. So . . . here we go.
We Have Different Talents, Yet We Are All the Same In Many Ways
Each of us has unique talents and gifts. Some people are great communicators, others excel at bringing people together. Some folks have unlimited energy towards their goals and others a sincere calming presence. I admire people who solve problems far more creatively than others or who make athletic achievement look easy. These are all talents that some have and others lack. One of the critically important tasks in everyone’s life should be to determine their own unique talents, their calling in life. It is said that the two most important days in your life are the day you’re born and the day you find out why.
Conversely, there are some aspects of humanity that are common to each of us. For example, people possess the ability to empathize and to be courteous, honest, and kind. We can each act courageously and be loyal. We might not do these things as often as we should, but we are certainly capable. Perhaps most importantly to our psyche, however, we also have the common capacity to hope. In fact, we hope all the time. Hope is the expectation that something desirable will happen in the future. The outcome is out of our control, but there is a timeline undergirding our expectation. Hope is a beautiful thing. In my life, when I have a hope that something will happen . . . my spirits are raised and I gain a sense of optimism that is very healthy in a tough, unpredictable, and unfair world. Hope is a healthy, emotional response especially when the alternative is despair, negativity, and pessimism. Think about it, a world without hope would be a miserable place to exist.
What Happens When Hope Isn’t Enough: Enter Faith
Critically, however, there are times where hope alone is often not enough. Hope by itself is a bit delicate. It relies on events and actions we cannot control and can be crushed easily. When something doesn’t go the way in which we hope for or takes longer to materialize than we desire, it’s easy to lose hope. For all its positive benefits, hope is often too easily defeated. Think about how many times you’ve lost hope in your life. This is a devastating feeling and reverses all the positives that came with our hope in the first place.
Sometimes we need more than an expectation that something good will happen. We need confidence that there is a plan for our life and that we are more than we think of ourselves at the time. Enter faith. Faith is confidence that something we can’t prove will happen. Though our evidence wouldn’t hold up in court, we have complete (or near-complete) trust in our hearts. The book of Hebrews defines faith similarly: “faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” And so, we see that faith is more robust than hope. How?
Faith provides the confidence that hope struggles to supply. This is because the expectations we derive from faith do not necessarily have a result or timeline attached. We hope that our job will get better or that our pain will diminish. Our faith reassures us that no matter what happens at work there is someone in charge working for our good. A person of faith sees that any particular outcome is less important than the confidence and peace that comes with believing there is a bigger plan in play. This means that faith is much deeper than hope. For example, I often hope for good things to happen in my life – like a promotion or clean bill of health. My faith, however, leads me to believe that everything will be okay even if the stuff I hope for is delayed, never happens, or comes out contrary to my desires.
And so, it’s critically important to your authentic happiness that you find something to believe in. Can a person be truly happy without faith? I think the answer is yes; it’s just a ton harder to manufacture such contentment alone.
Augment Your Faith & Hope with Love
The bottom line is that our hope desperately needs faith in a something bigger to assure us that everything is going according to a plan and will turn out, eventually, for our own good. But, does even a solid faith need anything to strengthen it? Yes, as it turns out. Our faith – to take on its most powerful form – needs us to love other people and to do so authentically and deeply. The book of First Corinthians 13:13 makes this point very simply, “Three things will last forever – faith, hope, and love – and the greatest of these is love.”
Why is love important?
Love is the strong affection and unselfish desire for another person’s well being. True love has nothing to do with our own self-interest or benefit. When you love someone deeply, there is nothing they can do to take that affection away. Again, First Corinthians makes the point that: “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, always perseveres. Love never fails.” I cannot think of a better definition than that.
Love is also an energy producer. It gives us fuel to keep going. When we care about others in a purely altruistic sense, we want to protect them and help them thrive. This is a powerful source of energy. For example, my fuel to be a great father and husband never runs out. Why? It’s because I love my family so deeply. I want them to thrive and be happy themselves . . . even when I’m upset with them. I also know that I need God to protect and care for them. I cannot do it alone. And I believe that God will because I have faith in His promise – “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’”. I cannot prove any of that, of course. It’s pure faith. However you interpret those words, though, it’s clear that my love for the people in my life strengthens my faith as a I am certain I cannot do it all myself.
In the end, love makes our faith seem worthwhile and important. Imagine believing in a God that ignored the idea that love is important to humanity or who made no promises that there is a bigger plan? If we have no one to love and no plan to believe in, it’s nearly impossible to have hope and difficult to have faith. And that’s what we need, so desperately in tough times, some energy to keep striving.
And so . . . we need hope and faith and love to truly prosper in our darkest hours or at any time really.
Application: Let’s Plot It Out
Now it’s time for some application. It’s time to think about your hopes and how you can use faith and love to help these desired outcomes occur. It’s helpful to classify these hopes based on our relationships. For example, what do you hope for in terms of: yourself, your spouse / significant other, your family, your friends, and your community? How does your faith inform these decisions? Does it make you more confident to try and help bring them about. Would it help things if you loved more of these people more authentically and deeply like described above? Think about these things as you go about your week.
- Yourself: I hope that I . . .
- Your spouse / significant other: I hope that my spouse . . .
- Your family: I hope that my family . . .
- Your friends: I hope that my friends . . .
- Your community: I hope that my community . . .
The Moral of the Story: Hope is important, but it must be bolstered by the confidence that comes from faith and the energy that comes from loving deeply in your life. So, seek more Hope, Faith, and Love and life has the potential to become all that you ever imagined.
More soon,
Corey
- Check out COREYSPEAKS.COM for more on popular keynote speaker Corey Ciocchetti. Corey has keynotes on happiness, integrity, ethical leadership, ethical decision-making, morale, stress reduction, and professionalism. Corey has spoken in 44 states and over 250 cities since 2007.
- Check out Corey’s other cool ethics blog posts on LEADERSHIP and HAPPINESS – you won’t regret it.
- Corey’s new book, INSPIRE INTEGRITY: CHASE AN AUTHENTIC LIFE is available now!
