What do you gain if you are hopeful? What is also your loss when you are hopeless?
Ezekiel 37:11-14 says: “Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, ‘our bones are dry. Our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!’ “Therefore Prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Behold, O My people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves and bring you unto the land of Israel. “then you shall know that I am the lord, when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up from your graves. “I will put my Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I, the Lord have spoken it and performed it” says the Lord”.
We have an all knowing God, an almighty God, He reigns supreme and hence why been hopeless when we can rely on Him? Besides, if you are hopeless you do not just hold onto nothing, something happens. What’s that? Let’s find out.
The people of a beautiful and prosperous town situated beside a lake had a rude shock one day. They were told that their town was to be flooded, as part of a large lake for which a dam was being built. In the months before it was to be flooded, all improvements and repairs in the whole town were stopped. What was the use of painting a house if it were to be covered with water in six months? Why repair anything when the whole town was to be wiped out? Week in, week out, the whole town became more and more unkempt, the streets were not cleaned, the town’s garbage was left uncollected and homes were not tidied. The farmers stopped working on their farms as they allowed weed to overgrow their farms. Most of the town’s people took to a careless and wayward life and some packed off and moved.
A visitor to the town who had seen it in better days asked the towns people why they had allowed such decay into their lives and community. Explaining the cause of their condition, the town’s people told the visitor about the prediction of the impending flood as a result of the dam being constructed nearby. After hearing their explanation, the visitor revealed that what they feared was not true at all; that in building the dam plans had been made by the government to protect that town from destruction. That new information changed the mood in the town. The people went back to work and got their town back to its past glory.
If not for anything else, the major lesson we can learn here is simple: “When people have no hope for the future; they mismanage their present opportunities”. Do not make your present become a dry bone, when there is life there is hope. As we strive and try to make our living better, we should allow hope carry us along. Be you a Christian or not! But most importantly, hope in the one true living God sets us apart for a greater and permanent blessing.