Hope for a Better World

I believe that every person has hope that there will be a better world. Each and every person, no matter who they are, have a picture in their mind of what they believe would be a better world. Whether that is no war, more laughter, less pain, etc. Whatever is it is and whether we have consciously thought about it or not, we have pictured it. From what I have learned from my mentor and my own personal opinion, I have concluded that our hope's for a better world can be generally categorized into three views.

The first is the view that is held by those who believe in what the Bible teaches. This is the belief that our hope does not need to be and will not be found on this earth. That this world cannot live up to the hope we have of peace and harmony. They believe our hope does not need to be found on earth because our better world will be found after we die and enter into heaven.

The second view is one that is held by those who believe there will be no life after death (afterlife). That when we die we will be put into the ground and lose all existence. Because they believe their life will end at death they have hope that this world could get better before they reach the point of death. They believe that there is a chance that the world leaders will begin to get along and that there could be an end to war, world hunger etc. They must place their hope in this earth because they believe there is nothing after it.

The third view is also held by those who believe there will be no life after death. Although similar to the second view in this sense, the third view has the largest difference from the others. This is because, those who have this view do not believe that their hope will be fulfilled. Although they are trying to hold on to the belief that this world can change, their hope is slowly slipping through their finger tips. As they watch the horror going on in this world they begin to realize that their chances of receiving the world they long for are very slim.

Whatever view we hold their is one thing that we all have in common. We all hope that we could live in a better world and have a view of the "good life" that we desire to reach.

My Mentor

The person I have asked to be my mentor for this project is a man named Mark Berg. To me however, he has always just been Mr. Berg. When I was in elementary school, Mr. Berg was my sixth grade teacher. Although that was six years ago I can still remember many of the things that Mr. Berg taught me. He helped me grow so much in that one year and made me realize for the first time that my faith was something I couldn't just rely on my parents for, this was something that needed to be my own. So often Mr. Berg helped me without even realizing it. His extreme love for God and those around him always encouraged me to be better. He is an amazing man of God and his passion for learning the scriptures is absolutely incredible. I chose him as my mentor because I greatly admire his opinion and his knowledge of the Bible's teachings. I believe there is a lot more that I can learn from Mr. Berg and I am looking forward to hearing all he has to say about hope. I'm eager to learn what it means to him personally and his interpretation of what the Bible speaks about. I am also really excited just to be able to sit down and speak with him again after so many years.

/hōp/

So often we use a word very frequently in our day to day lives, yet don't completely understand its meaning. I think hope is one of these words. As you can imagine I hear the word hope very often. Yet because it is said as my name, I seldom think about what is means as a word in itself. I figured it was time to do so.

hope/hōp/

noun a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen. a feeling of trust. There are two different meanings of the word hope. As seen above, one meaning is "a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen." We've all experienced this kind of hope. As a young child, waking up on Christmas morning wishing so hard that what you wanted is wrapped  underneath the tree. As a teenager wanting that cute boy in english to like you back so badly. Or maybe as an adult just praying that you can scrape up the rent money for the coming week. We've all hoped for things in our lives, whether they are big or small. However, the second meaning of hope is one that I'm not sure everyone has experienced to it's full extent. This meaning is described as "a feeling of trust". At some point in our lives, most of us have heard someone say "you can trust me" or even been the one to say that we have trust in someone else. Yet this doesn't necessarilly mean that we have all felt complete trust. This meaning of hope is describing what seems to be a complete contentment in what is going on around us because we have trust in someone or something. Now this hope can be put into many different things. Maybe someone puts this hope in someone else, a friend, family member or loved one. Maybe even themselves. We can also put our hope into something we believe is higher then ourselves. Muslims's put their hope in Alah, Buddhist's in Buddha, Hindu's in karma, and Christian's in Jesus Christ (Son of God). Whether we realize it or not, we have all put out hope in something. Now whether this is true hope or not is the real question.