When was the last time you felt hopeless for an extended amount of time and then heard some #goodnews that brought you out of it?

How'd it make you feel? What happened to your energy? It's almost as if #newlife was given to you and you were able to pass through the difficult circumstances you were in right?

Today we're going to go over some practical steps FOR YOU to gain #hope - because how motivated of an #evangelist are you when you yourself are feeling a little #hopeless?

Here's our topics:

• How to recognize hopelessness in your own life
• What the Bible says about hope for you
• Practical steps you can do to experience more hope today
  
  

How to Recognize Hopelessness In Your Own Life

It a feeling of being defeated. Like you've lost somehow in life. Maybe you have in some area like at work, in a relationship, in your health, in your faith.

The feeling comes from a unique combination-awareness between your conscious and subconscious mind over your two worlds.

Your two worlds being:

• the world you wish existed
• the world the way it is
  

The world you wish existed is the one that includes all your hopes and dreams and excitements. It's the one that you think things should be.

Everyone's is different and personal and usually colored with their personal preferences and desires but also with their views of justice and redemption.

Take a second and think of yours. What would a perfect world to you look like?

This question is not to be taken foolishly either like, "Oh I wish for world peace." Do you really? Or is it more likely you're wishing for peace between you and someone else? Or peace between a group of others close to you that you know?

"I wish I had 10 million dollars" Really? Or is it more likely that you're wishing you could just pay the bills for once?

Write down just 5 things about your life that exist in your dream world; stuff that makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside:

1. _____________________
2. _____________________
3. _____________________
4. _____________________
5. _____________________

Next, write down beside those 5 things what life is really like for those areas.

The depth of sensation of hopelessness/anxiety/sadness/etc., is determined by the length of distance between those two worlds.

That distance or disconnect is where pain exists. This is how/where you can recognize hopelessness in your life.

What the Bible Says About Hope For Your Life

I think one of the reasons we experience hopelessness the way we do - for some, not all - is that we read the Bible but we don't take it's promises to us personally.

If I told you that you had $1000 in the bank waiting for you, and you knew that but you never went after it, would you really get to enjoy that money? Wouldn't life be better if you did?

Here is a list of scriptures you can use in various circumstances:

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Practical Steps To Experience More Hope In Your Life Today

Of course this is a case by case scenario and you have to discover what works for you. But here is the process of getting this to work.

First Step is to recognize the difference between the world you have and the world you wish you had.

You need to get very detailed in the description for the more details you have, the more clearly you can see the distance between the two.

Second Step is to eliminate from the dream-world the things that just aren't realistic like if you're 5'ft tall and you want to play in the NBA.

Other than literal physical limitations that are stopping you, everything else might be considered. For example crazy ideas aren't always not-realistic.

If you can think it, chances are it can exist! Just take a look at inventions like Wifi, cameras, space travel, etc., Just because it's a crazy idea doesn't mean it can't happen.

On that note, I suppose if you're 5'ft tall and want to play in the NBA, surgery could be an option! But is that realistic for you?

Think hard in this section and try to be realistic with the limitations that exist.

Step 3 is to decide what is going to change.

You are either going to have to change what you are currently doing so you can have your dream world here.

For example if you are overweight and you want to be a model, you're going to have to change your habits to those of a model's so you can have the body of a model.

This would include eating strategically, exercise, and lots of consistency/discipline.

OR you are going to have to change what your dream world looks like.

For example, if you like the idea of having hair (you're bald) but you're not willing to get surgery or find alternative ways to grow it, then you'll have to change your desire and learn how to like a shiny dome (your head).

[Personally I had a struggle with losing my hair until I realized Jason Statham kind of looks like me... Now I dig it. So does my wife.]

Maybe another practical example is if the world you envision how it should be includes you having lots of friends and even someone special, and you've been known to hog conversations, argue, judge, or you have bad hygiene, a bad sense of humor, never leave the house and just play video games, or you just lack people skills in general - then you have a choice:

• Change in a way that makes you attractive to people: physically, socially, mentally, etc.
• Or, stay the same and change your vision.

This is not hard advice, it's practical advise.

You have the opportunity to get whatever you want. It simply comes down to changing yourself to get what you want, or staying the same and simply changing what you want.

One more practical example: the world you envision for yourself includes you having plenty of wealth being able to do what you wish when you wish.

At the current moment you're working paycheck to paycheck. So here are your options:

• Learn about money
• Invest and save wisely
• Don't spend frivolously
• Start a business
• Work harder/longer/smarter
• Change your habits

Or

• Be content with where you are

The common denominator in all of this is that to get what you've never had you must do what you've never done.

It's not easy of course. But when you step into that journey you get a three-fold experience:

1. The sense of change, of productivity, of excitement
2. The joy of the accomplishment
3. And the your goal in and of itself

If you pursue the world you envision, your level of hope will change because you have something to work towards.

If you sit stagnant, you will stick with that sense of hopelessness.

So What Are Your Thoughts?

What has been keeping you feeling hopeless and where was the disconnect? Which of the two worlds needed to change: what you were doing or what you were wanting?