I have spoken to many people who find life to be meaningless, empty and futile. Others see life as just a burden to be lived through as best as one can. To others life is something that is boring and tedious and must be endured. Some say that one can only succeed if one learns to live with this dreary situation. To be sure all of these are a portion of life, but not all. Life is beautiful in that it is life. When you did not exist something was missing in your surroundings, that something was you. You add to the moment even when you cannot see it.
What makes the difference in people who can smile every day regardless of the situation is hope and faith. Those without hope and faith live empty lives. Their life is the moment they are living whether good or bad. If one of their loved ones dies they have no hope of ever seeing them again. To them he is gone forever, never to be seen or enjoyed again. To those who do not have this hope the pain of losing a love one is much, much more severe because they see him as having disappeared for ever. Even in hope and faith there is pain when a family member dies or a friend is taken away. But deep down we know we will see them again, that they have only gone for a while or moved away.
Faith and hope sound silly to the intellectual mind which would rather live with what it sees. In the heart of an atheist it is all about pride and vanity of self-verses having faith and hope in the unknown. What they fail to realize is that life is in fact very, very, hard and without faith and hope you are making it much harder than you might be able to live with. When the atheist teaches his children that there is no God, they are making life twice as hard for the children as well as for themselves. He or she is taking away from that child the instrument that would have made life a little easier.
In times of trouble or times of stress they well have no one to go to outside of themselves. And in many cases there is just so much that a human being can do before he to breaks down. The human mind was made to work with faith and hope, when you deny this in order to look more intellectual or look smarter than the rest you destroy one of Gods most precious gifts to humans. You cannot believe in God without faith and hope because God is a faith God. Out of his love for us God has provided this super natural substance called faith and hope which is available to anyone who needs it or asks for it.
All religions are made in order to instill faith and hope in something. If this were not important it would never have started in the first place. It is so important that ninety five percent of the population of the world has hope and faith in something or someone. What makes people different from the animals is this urge to look outward to a higher power. The animal world has no faith or hope; only humans have this virtue, if they want it. So why would people reject this gift? Arrogance, rebellion, vanity, pride, selfishness, and lack of knowledge might be some of the reasons people lack hope and faith.
I am a Christian and believe the bible is the word of God but I sometimes look at what God is really trying to do with all this. I have come to the conclusion that it is all about faith and hope. God wants us to have this hope; he knows we cannot live without it, so he has provided the word to give us this hope and this faith. Even with all this, life is still very, very, hard so I am glad when I can pray or open up my bible and receive a word for the day.
My mother is very old now and just waiting to die which will make us very sad. But we know that she is a believer and we believe we will see her in the Kingdom of God looking beautiful and vibrant once again. Is this better than believing that she will die and turn into a bag of worms, I believe that this is better. God the Father wants us to trust him and put our hope in him that is why we have verses such as John 3:16 which show us the Fathers love for all of creation. It is all done so we might have faith and hope; even the death of Jesus is for our faith and hope.
John 3:16-21
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

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