July 14 - Alive and Hopeful

July 14 – Alive and Hopeful

“Anyone who is among the living has hope – even a live dog is better off than a dead lion!” (Ecclesiastes 9:4)

That’s just kind of an odd verse isn’t it?  But, it’s quite true.  And obviously, dogs weren’t as highly thought of then as they are now.

The next part of the thought process for me has to do with what we are hoping for.

Are we hoping for a longer life or are we hoping for eternity?

The way I see it, once we cross over from life on earth to eternity, we no longer have need for hope, we will be living within the glory of the Father.

Hope is something that motivates us to move from day to day.  If we look at our lives on earth, without hope, the rest of our life would be quite bleak.  Hope is that glorious thing that allows us to imagine things can be better tomorrow than they are today.

Every moment that we are alive, we have hope that the next moment will be better.  If it fails to live up to our hope, we start all over again and hope for yet another moment to grow in goodness.

When we are dead … hope ends for us, but not for the rest of those alive.  It continues for them. 

The transition we make from a life filled with hope to eternity is quite an interesting challenge.  What do you think about hope and eternity?  Will we need it then?