Opus 2022-064: The Motivating Nature of Hope

I earlier wrote about how destructive hope can me.  Like many things in life it has another side.  Hope can also bring about the changes that make life worth living.

Look at our history.  What kept the American Army going through Valley Forge?  Hope.  But it wasn’t just blind wishing.  It was hope with a focus.  
    In an ideal
    In a God
    In a general

The patriots of the Continental Army had inadequate equipment, little training and few victories.  What they had was a belief in the cause of liberty.  They knew that English citizens were supposed to have certain rights.  Most of what would be called the Bill of Rights in our Constitution were already listed in the English Declaration of Rights from 1689.  They weren’t just causing trouble, they had an ideal.

The rebels had a faith in God and a hope found in the Bible.  Unlike today when the pulpits of America are filled with the Go-along-get-along crowd, many pulpits of the colonies were filled by men who wanted more that being subject to the whims of an English king and his parliament.  The ideals of the Declaration of Independence were rooted in a Biblical understanding of the importance of the individual and how all stood on level ground before almighty God.  They rejected the class structure of European society.

And they had a general.  Actually they had lots of generals but they were held together by a man named George Washington.  Washington would never be rated as the military genius of a Caesar, Napoleon or Lee.  What he had was character.  He generated trust in the troops and repeatedly demonstrated that he deserved that trust.  He could have been king.  The army tried to force him into it.  He rejected the honor.  He stepped down after two terms as president to become a private citizen.  

We see this kind of thing in the American spirit of entrepreneurship.  Small businesses don’t fail because the people had no hope but because they didn’t do hard planning and put in hard work to make it legitimate.  It came through as immigrants moved west to homestead and build communities.  We saw it in colleges planted and nurtured by self-sacrificing patrons and professors.  

It is always important to place your hope in a worthy object.  Don’t count on the good nature of your fellow man.  Don’t hope just because it makes you feel comfortable.  Be aware that for hope to be effective it must demand something from you.

There is hope.

homo unius libri