“Hope is a form of faith and tends to produce what it sees. Despair is a form of faith and tends to produce what it sees.” (N. Gordon Cosby)
What do you see? The ancient prophet recorded God saying, “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18). But just what “vision” do you see, observe, or perceive? Is everything going to hell in a bread basket? Is the future anything to look forward too? Despair feels that it is useless to attempt to change things. Our best efforts to make this world a better place will come to nothing. What’s the use of trying? “Despair is a form of faith and tends to produce what it sees.”
Vision, in the biblical sense, is the capacity to see that which ought to be but is not yet. What do you see? Do you see “Love” at the heart of things? Do you see a world in which brothers and sisters, regardless of differences, live together in harmony? Can you perceive what most Christians pray for through the Lord’s Prayer? “Thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.” Do you believe such a vision—so different from what is—is real? This vision is not about some “pie in the sky” afterlife—it is about God’s kingdom coming here, where we live, work, play, and suffer. “Even now it is breaking forth from the bud. Can you not perceive it?” “Hope is a form of faith and tends to produce what it sees.”
