Hope or Fear

Happy Friday Friends!

I hope and trust this post finds you all having a great day and that you have all had a great week. Only 5 days until Christmas...oh my!

Hope or fear...we are all going to choose one or the other, possibly multiple times, during the day as well as throughout our lives. The choice we make in those moments will determine the quality of the lives we live, the actions we take and, as a result of the actions we do or do not take, dictate the futures we live.

Have you ever really thought about hope, about fear. We hope for things we want to happen, we fear things that we don't want to happen. It is in the uncertainty of life that the seeds of hope or fear are planted - whichever one we water is the one that grows. You want to really shake your head? Take a look at this:

Certain
Adjective
Known for sure, established beyond doubt

So what exactly can we be certain of? I started typing out a whole bunch of questions - each one had "no" for an answer - however I don't want to waste your time or belabor the point. I would argue that the only thing that is certain is this moment - who you are, where you are, your hopes & dreams, etc. - right now. The only thing you or I can do is to live fully in this moment right now. While I hope I have tomorrow with my family I don't know that I will. Therefore wisdom would tell me to live this moment to the fullest with them - to truly be fully present with them, to love them, to cherish our time together. It is true of literally every aspect of life, of every moment. The challenge then is to live fully in the moment.

Let's get back to hope and fear and their impact on the moment. I can live a life of hope - noun; a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen - or I can live a life of fear - noun; an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat. Both are based on the unknown - something in the future. In fact, each one of us will choose to live with one or the other - they may be in different shades of grey as a friend of mine would say, but the scale is tipped towards one or the other. And the impact on the moment? Think about the words we speak, the things we do, how we treat others when we have an expectation or a desire for something to happen. How about the words we speak, the things we do, how we treat others when we have a belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat? Our choice to walk by or hope to walk by faith has everything to do with the moment - they control it.

Friends, I pray that each one of us will choose to live a life of hope. Will we get knocked down sometimes, kicked in the gut? Yes, I am sorry we will. What do we do then? We get back up, we dust ourselves off and we again make a choice - hope or fear. Please choose hope.

Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you or your family. I will always be willing to help you any way I can.

Have a great day, a wonderful weekend, a very Merry Christmas and please cherish your precious families.

Kev