Show Notes
Hope is easy to speak about, yet challenging to walk out. In this podcast, we talk about how our hope is pressure tested and the process that we go through in pursuit of its authenticity. Take notes on this one!
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Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:13 Welcome to the life refresh podcast. My name is Ryan Robinson. And if you are looking for a podcast that is designed to uplift, encourage, and revive your heart, mind, and spirit, you're in the right place. Welcome to the journey of becoming the version of you. God designed from the foundations. Now let's begin.
Speaker 1 00:00:52 Hello everyone. Welcome back to the life refresh podcast. This is Ryan Robinson, glad that you're able to tune into this podcast. Uh, this time I'm really excited about the topic for today. This topic is really interesting, actually is one that I feel we all, at some point we exhibit this particular characteristic. We use this word a lot, but I think there are times when we don't use it in the correct context due to our circumstances, or just the generic dialogue that we have with one another. And this word is the word, hope it is the word hope. Uh, I'm gonna start with, with a verse of scripture, which, uh, many people know, but it is, uh, Hebrews chapter 11, verse one. And it says now faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen. And it appears that hope is a very key ingredient in faith, uh, with utilizing this scripture in the sense of a, a, a, uh, equation, we can say that faith equals hope times, vision, and you wanna put in parentheses unseen <laugh> um, you don't have to hope for anything that you can see.
Speaker 1 00:02:32 You need hope for the thing that you can't see, the thing that you want to come to pass. The thing that you are believing for and believing is rooted in a hope that you can, and eventually will obtain what you have yet to see faith, or excuse me, hope is so powerful that it'll keep you moving towards goals that you have established for yourself and will never derail you from reaching that goal. Think of something that you have believed in so wholeheartedly that you said there was nothing that could deter you, that could distract you from reaching that goal. It might be grades. It might have been on the field of competition in sport or a puzzle, or looking for something hope has a very amazing way of making itself known to us. In fact, it's what keeps us engaged is something that, because we have hope we will stay and endure, whatever comes our way in order to obtain the thing that we are believing in.
Speaker 1 00:03:54 It anchors you to causes that you care about to goals. You envision, it has such a powerful thing. It actually keeps you in relationships that you shouldn't be in. I'm gonna say that again, hope will keep you in relationships that you shouldn't be in. Remember the boyfriend or the girlfriend that you were hoping would like you back, but your hope kept you in something that prob, okay, I'm just gonna move on. Um, but I, I may not be the only one, but I think many of us have hoped for something like that. Hope that someone that we cared about or someone would eventually love us back. And we hoped so long that the person that really wanted to honor and care for us just kind of went by the wayside. That one was extra <laugh>. Um, but you might hope in a, getting a career.
Speaker 1 00:04:47 We hope in our education that our education can position us for a role and a opportunity to receive the finances that we believe we deserve. So, and we also believe that it will bring fulfillment, which keeps us again, anchored and going on and on to an outcome that we have yet to receive. Okay. So that is one of the most powerful things about hope. Now, hope is something that, uh, again, I is, is powerful, but when there is a phrase, and I mentioned in my first podcast from, uh, the book of necessary endings by Dr. Henry cloud, he has this quote that I really want us to think about as we continue to discuss hope. This quote says hope is always holding on when it looks bad and being able to hold on sometimes for a long, long time, when the rubber meets the road, this is where we find out if you really have hope or just an empty wish masquerading as a hope.
Speaker 1 00:06:07 Ah, let me say that again. When the rubber meets the road and life happens, this is where we find out if you really have hope or just an empty wish, masquerading as hope. Okay. So let, let's, uh, uh, let let's think about some goals that you may have for yourself. So, um, we we'll just say, uh, obtaining a particular role and career that you, that you have the life will tell you. Um, and again, this happens to all of us. So don't think that you're on exempt when you we've put our goals. Life will find a way to challenge what you believe. Okay? You might have someone on your job that drives you crazy. You might have a boss that may push you. That may challenge you, that may, uh, unsettle you in pursuit of that goal. What you've been hoping for. Now, if you have real hope, you will endure some of the challenges, the pitfalls, the failures that come along in pursuit of what you hope for. Okay. You will pay a cost to do that. Now, let me tell you what the cost of hope real hope entails. Okay. It entails getting beat up a little bit.
Speaker 1 00:07:46 If you, I remember going through training, uh, you know, when you're in high school for football and, and or, or any kind of sport, you know, for me, it was football and conditioning was something I did not look forward to. I did not want to run. I don't think anyone, uh, well, there was something that liked to get up and just start running up for just, just to run. I'm not one of those. I am not built for that, but in order to play, which is a hope that I had, I had to be willing to endure the pain of training, right? Of running of conditioning, of paying the cost, to be someone who deemed worthy to play. Now, whether I had the talent or not, that's one thing, that's a separate issue. But my willingness to submit to the painful process of conditioning, running, weight, lifting, studying all the things was cost was the payment for the hope that I have. And that to me, is something that most people aren't willing to do. They're not willing to pay a cost to be the boss. It's super expensive. I mean, if, if you really think about it, it requires your time. Uh, it requires your effort. It requires something from you. It requires a little bit of a sacrifice. If not more sacrifice
Speaker 1 00:09:21 When you hoping something, okay. The next thing that it requires out of you is it requires patience. You gotta wait to get what you hope for. If you have hoped for anything that became instant, it was not worth hoping for. It was not worth believing. If you instantly received what you hoped for. Think of anything that you have received quickly, And here it is, there was no cost to pay.
Speaker 1 00:09:57 That has to be the first piece, hence why it was the first point. You have to pay a cost and then you have to wait. Now, how long you going to wait for that? And a lot of times you go back and forth between waiting and paying, waiting, and paying, waiting, and paying for every weight and every pain. It takes you to a whole nother level. You're better than what you were, but you still have a ways to go for what you hoped for, but you are being refined in the process to really prove if what you believe is truly what you believe and hope for. Okay? So we, again, we don't want, Oh, uh, an empty wish, uh, mask on Like future as hope.
Speaker 1 00:11:00 It costs too much. That's why people give up. That's why people quit. They realize that the pain that they're going through currently is not worth the end goal. So they quit. They're easy to quit. It's easy to quit because they forgot the reason why they decided to hope. And, and that word decide, keep that in your mind for a minute, because that right there is how all of this even gets started. Okay. So the next thing it is is, is patience. So we talked about, you know, life will, uh, challenge you. There's pain involved with hope there's, uh, uh, patience in hope.
Speaker 1 00:11:50 And the, the third part is that there is a character building in hope you might find out, you have a bit of an ego problem in the middle of hoping <laugh>. You might find out that you, uh, uh, a take on too much responsibility. You think everything is about you. Uh, you might find out something that you don't necessarily like to hear, but the process of obtaining and receiving what you believe in requires you to be revealed to your self, to yourself, so that when you do get to that point, you can't sustain it. You can maintain it, and you have the character. That's the key point. There's nothing worse than having a believed in something and having terrible character along with it. You think it's about you, you think you did it by yourself and you know, there's some times when those folks get humbled, I've, you know, I, I think we've all have had to have our plate of humble pie at one time or another in our lives where we thought that we were the cats, Meow, that we were God's gift to a team or God's gift to, to a particular area of expertise.
Speaker 1 00:13:14 We will find out quickly that you cannot stay in a position that your character can't keep you. Oh, that's so good. <laugh> you can't stay in a position that your character can't keep you. So listeners are we striving for a role that we've paid the cost we've waited, but we're not willing to be transformed in our character so that when we do receive it, that we do get to that point, that we have the character that goes along with it, or will our character disqualify us from all the hard working patients that we put in.
Speaker 1 00:13:56 Yeah. Now, after we've paid the cost of pain after we've exhibited patience, <laugh> after we've had our character refined, then you have hope you have some real hope. You have, you know, both like the thing, the person that comes to mind is Rudy. Uh, for those who haven't seen the movie, but it's the story of a walk on in Notre Dame who just would not give up. He had no talent. He was just hoping to get an opportunity to play. And they eventually made a movie out of it. Uh, but he has a level of hope that inspired people. They say he had a lot of heart. He had a lot of heart. So, uh, the also Bible says, I believe it's Proverbs 13, 12. Um, it says, hope deferred makes the heart sick, but joy is the tree of life. So when you obtain the very thing that you are believing in for that, you thought that you didn't, that you, after you've paid the cost that you've received it, there is nothing like working towards a goal, working towards a vision that you have for yourself that comes to fruition too. And those are, are, are a blessing to all of us when we get to that point. But there's a couple things as, as we get to the end of, of this podcast, all of these things sound great, right? And he's like, yeah, Ryan, this sounds great.
Speaker 1 00:15:48 We've been through, uh, the pain process. We've gone through the waiting, the patience. We've also have had our character built, but all of these things, all these ideas, all of the, the heart things that we enjoy or we're talking about here are predicated on one thing. And it's a small thing that we ignore is the ability to decide, to make a choice, to make a choice. And these days we have a concept called learn helplessness and learn. Helplessness is just like, it is. It's something that we have learned based upon life's circumstances, the pain that we've call we've experienced, we've internalized the pain. Therefore we do not want to experience pain because we felt it to be so traumatizing that we just won't even try. So inadvertently, we have chosen to not choose. If we have allowed the pain, the patience, and the character building to affect us in a way that derails us from our hope, our vision for our lives.
Speaker 1 00:17:18 So I want you to remember that all of us have the ability to decide, to decide. Now this word means in its original language in the Latin means to cut, to cut side D side, to cut. So when we say yes to something, that means we are also saying no to other things, okay? It is at that point that we choose, this is the goal. This is the focus. This is the vision. And we forsake everything else in pursuit of that. One thing, and life will challenge you on that. One thing that you are believing for yourself, for your family, for your career, for your potential, for your purpose, every corner you get, once you have chosen, that is what I am hoping for. That's the challenge listeners is that once we have done this invisible and exercised this, uh, exercise, this invisible power to choose it is that choice, that small domino, that puts all the other dominoes in place. But the real question for all of us Is, are we going to choose, are we going to decide With so many options these days? It's so hard to do that. I mean, we have you look at the grocery store these days. There are so many options that we have so many options for milk, whether you want almond milk, oat milk, uh, lactose free milk, regular milk, whole milk, skin milk. I there's just so many options to decide from and due to so many options, many of us can get this concept or get this thing called decision fatigue.
Speaker 1 00:19:54 It is an amazing thing. Maybe we'll go into that in another podcast. Um, when you make too many choices <laugh>, but this really gets into the power of no, Your know, Has a lot to do with your vision and what you hope for.
Speaker 1 00:20:19 But, uh, the quote says this, you are born looking like your parents, but you're going to die looking like your decisions. I'm gonna say that again. That is so good. <laugh> you are born looking like your parents, but you're going to die looking like your decisions listeners, after you, since you decided to listen to this podcast, <laugh>, you're gonna make some more decisions. Once this podcast is over. Remember what you do today affects your tomorrow. Your older self is counting on your younger self to be smart and to make the best decisions. So hopefully, uh, on our next podcast, we'll talk about how we can get ourselves around the power of no. So we can guard our yeses and make sure that they require and get our full and undivided attention and pursuit of whatever God has in store for
Speaker 0 00:21:34 Us.
Speaker 1 00:21:37 Thank you for tuning into the life refresh podcast. There are three things I'll need you to do before you go one, subscribe to this podcast, whether it be through apple podcast, Google podcast, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcast, make sure that you subscribe to get the latest episode in your feed. Two rank the podcast. If you like what you heard today, make sure you give it a great rating on those platforms. It'll help get us the exposure we need to make our message much broader and reach a different audience. And three, make sure you share this episode. I guarantee if you found value in it, someone you're connected to will find value that said, take care tune.
