Opportunity Requires Action
Let’s revisit yesterday’s example. The man who sees the
opportunity in the manure must do a lot of smelly, messy work before he can
benefit from that opportunity. If he doesn’t already have a garden tilled, he
must break the ground and furrow the rows to prepare them for planting. Then,
he must take the manure and mix it into the furrowed ground and plant the
seeds.
Afterward, he must keep tending and weeding the seeds to
prevent them from being choked off before they can grow. He must do this daily,
or at least every few days. He must make sure that the plants are adequately
watered, as well, and if there isn’t rain that means bringing water to the
plants on a regular basis.
The man must continue to do this for anywhere from 60 to 90
days before he sees the first fruits of his labor if he is dealing in
vegetables. If this is fruit trees or bushes, it may be years before he sees
that first harvest, and that is only if those trees do not blossom too early
and have their fruit stolen by early frost. It is only if pests and birds do
not eat the fruits before he can harvest them.
Hope Encourages Action
It may be that we can spot an opportunity with ease, but if
we allow self-doubt to flood us, or allow ourselves to dwell on past failures,
we may allow fear to stop us from acting on that opportunity until the moment
passes and the opportunity is lost forever. Hope reassures us that we have what
it takes.
Hope helps us to overcome our fears of failure by reminding
us that each failure is a learning opportunity, a chance to figure out what
went wrong and correct it for the next try. Hope helps us to detach our
identities from our goals by reminding us that we are loved simply for being,
we do not have to earn that by what we do.
Hope also reminds us that God wants
good things for us, and so we are encouraged to try for them.
Opportunity Requires Planning
The man who was able to spot the opportunity in the manure
did so because he first had a goal and some plans to reach that goal. He had a
plan to provide for his family. He had counted up his assets and realized that
he had land, was able to do the hard work to break that land, and could use the
combination of his sweat equity and the land to provide that food.
His initial goal of providing for his family was broken down
into several smaller goals: break the land, acquire the seeds, plant the seeds,
tend them to fruition, and harvest the food produced. He spotted the manure,
realized that it would help him to achieve a more abundant harvest when it was
time, and made plans to take advantage of that opportunity.
His new plans
included obtaining the tools needed to transfer the manure to his garden and then
applying it to the soil.
Hope Encourages Us To Plan
Hope helps us to formulate plans by encouraging us to ask ourselves
how we might achieve whatever it is we desire to do. Going back to the research
I cited, one of the most interesting findings about people who maintain high
levels of hope is that they are people with multiple goals and concrete,
definite plans of how to achieve them. Low hope people have only one goal and
no definitive plan to achieve it.
Opportunity Requires Preparing for Obstacles
Let’s say the man with the manure does not own a shovel and
wheelbarrow yet and so does not have the equipment to take advantage of the
opportunity it represents. Rather than dismissing the opportunity because of
the obstacle, he instead begins to make a list of potential ways he could
overcome it.
The man with the manure might borrow the tools he needs. If
he has money, he might go to the store and buy them. If he doesn’t have money
and can’t borrow them, he might look around and see if there is something else
he could use to carry it and some other way to scoop it up. He refuses to allow
the obstacle to force him to surrender his goal.
Even once the manure is in place and the seeds are planted,
he knows how easily the labor he puts into his garden can be wasted. He knows
he must constantly be on the lookout for weeds and pests. He must protect his
fruit from birds and wild animals that may seek to eat it before its time. He must
watch the weather and put together strategies to deal with droughts or floods,
frosts and scorching.
Hope Encourages Us To Prepare for Obstacles
"And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for My name's sake, will receive many times as much, and will inherit eternal life.” – Matthew 19:29
Christ warned everyone that reaching our goals, and as
Christians our ultimate goal is to be united with Christ, would never be easy. It would involve sacrifice. It would involve
blood, sweat, and tears. It would involve people who don’t understand what we’re
doing sometimes walking away and abandoning us. We would have to be willing to
risk everything and lose much before we were able to gain the object of our
desires.
But, He promised us that if we persevered, we would
eventually achieve greater things than we dared to dream. He gave us hope.
Hope reminds us that the obstacles are definitely going to
come. In fact, the closer we get to achieving those dreams, the more of them we
will encounter. However, these are not meant to deter us but to strengthen us.
Suffering is strength training for the soul.
Ready for More?
I discussed the ways that hope gets us to take action
by encouraging us to believe that greater things are possible, by helping us to
plan for success, and to prepare for obstacles. In the next chapter, I’ll talk about hope’s role in challenging us to achieve more.
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