This is the final entry from a previously submitted series written in November of 1984.
The church has backed away from giving people specific solutions for their problems. Minister and just concerned christians are worried that they will be responsible if they give someone in need a specific solution. Of course you are responsible! You are also responsible if you do not give them hope and a solution. I would not want God to say to me, “They needed hope and you gave them encouragement. You patronized them without giving them a way out.”
The building of another’s self-esteem comes from the desire to give them hope and implant in them a dream. Dr. Robert Schuller says in his book, Self-Esteem, “If only we could love ourselves enough to dare approach God, what constructive dreams He would give us.”
Those constructive dreams would cause us to build hope in others. Not only to build with mortar of encouragement, but to solidify the building with the steel girders of hope. Satan can destroy a building of only encouragement but one made of hope will never fall.
Encouraged people without hope will soon lose their strength, but a people of hope will always hold to the solutions that are found in a dream-giving God.
Joseph was an example of a man who held to the hope from God-given dreams. Trhough betrayals, dungeons, lies and intense suffering, God had given his a solution for his people and its society.
Joseph gave those dreams to others and an entire civilization was saved and became mighty because of dreams, hope and solutions.
Joseph was not self-centered with his promises from God. He did not say to the people, “I will pray about this famine. Be encouraged.” No, rather he demonstrated what James was to write in later years; “If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit?” He gave specific hope for a specific need.
What God has allowed us to dream we must give to others as an act of hope and a promise of solutions I found the words of a song which sum up the idea of hope, solutions and the needs of man.
If I could have inspiration,
I’d dream up dreams to give away.
Because all I see are future visions,
That become reality someday.
JHH
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