Scrap Hope, Have Faith

Is ‘hope’ the reason you are not achieving your goals? 

“Hope is a beggar. HOPE walks through the fire and FAITH leaps over it.” Jim Carrey

Hope. It’s spoken about with such endearment. In times of sorrow or when we are expecting change to happen, we’re encouraged to be hopeful.

While we’re told that being hopeful is good, positive even, what we are not told is that it diminishes our chances of reaching our goals because with hope, comes doubt.

That Ole Devil Called Doubt

When we have doubts surrounding any situation, it causes uncertainty – we might be hoping for a particular result but we are also accepting there’s a chance it won’t happen. Once doubt sets in, we feel a sense of desperation, and we tend to focus on the negative outcome.

As we discuss so often on this blog, the universe is like a mirror; whatever we pay our attention to, is reflected back into our lives, so by being hopeful and feeling desperate, we are potentially attracting the result that we don’t want.

Faith Propels

Now faith, on the other hand, is filled with trust – with faith we believe that something is going to happen, we’re sure of it and, because of our confidence, it is likely that it will happen.

The distinctions between hope and faith are clear; hope is uncertainty, whereas faith is certainty. 

Hope Removes us from the Present Moment

Living in the past or future in our minds is neither helpful nor good for our well-being. One of the major issues with hope is it removes us from whatever is happening right now because more often than not, it takes our mind to a place in the future.

When we are hoping for something, we tend to look ahead. We think about it. We focus on it, and we also consider whether it will happen or not, all of which removes us from the present moment.

Faith, however, is very much a present moment thing – it offers assurance, so we don’t have to mull over it, we don’t have to spend endless hours questioning it, or wondering if it will happen.

Faith is an inner confidence and, because of the certainty surrounding it, there’s no need to spend any time on it. Faith doesn’t remove us from what is happening right now, it doesn’t impede on our lives, and it doesn’t disturb the present moment.

One could say that hope takes place in the mind, and faith happens in the heart.

Hope Uses Logic

Logic, you might think, is very useful to you.

Sure it can be in certain situations; if you were to clean your home, for example, you might dust before vacuuming, because if you vacuumed first you’d potentially brush dust back onto the floor and have to repeat the previous steps again. That’s useful logic, which can be very helpful in those kinds of situations.

Logic is useful when it’s on its toes (in the present moment) but it is not so useful when we bring it into future moments.

Logic is usually always fear-driven, here’s an example – you might be searching for work, and find two jobs that suit your needs, you want to apply for them both but you think,

“One of them is quite far outside of my self-expectations, so I won’t go for that one because if I’m not successful, my self-esteem will be damaged, so I’ll apply for the safe option instead.”

That’s logic.

Logic prevents us from exceeding our own expectations because it gives us limits, and makes us feel uneasy should we even consider stretching beyond those limits.

To someone who is only guided by faith, logic doesn’t make sense. It gets in the way. In fact, it takes away faith by presenting us with fear and doubt.

Believe Without Seeing

Dr. Wayne Dyer spoke at a conference a few years ago where he discussed possessing an inner knowing.

He explained that when we go to the movies, we don’t watch the film and think, “that’s not happening, these people are actors and this was filmed in a studio,” because that would ruin the movie.

Instead, we enter the cinema room and for the course of the film, we forget what we know about how movies are made; we let go of doubt.

The movie might cause us to laugh, cry, and maybe even cover our eyes through sheer horror. For those moments, we can feel the emotion of whatever it is that we are watching.

The reason for this example is that faith requires you to have the same intention – it is about letting go, and believing something without physically seeing the mechanics behind it.

Faith requires us to sit back and enjoy the ride, whilst taking comfort in the fact there is an invisible intelligence taking care of everything for us.

Learn to cut hope from your mindset, it’s a beggar. It begs for change but sure enough comes up with plenty of excuses why you shouldn’t change. Whereas faith propels you to achieve anything because it is full of belief, confidence and an inner wisdom that everything is going to be just fine.

Scrap hope, have faith!

Do you choose hope or faith? Let us know below.

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