Hello Again, [First Name],
I made another short video on some thoughts for moving from ‘hopium’ to faith. You can watch it on Rumble here!
Urban dictionary describes ‘hopium’ as an addiction to false hopes.
I suspect the word ‘hopium’ might describe a sort of ‘lottery mentality’ where people participate passively in the ‘hope’ that something amazing is going to land in their lap, without them having to experience pain or hardship. That would be awesome, but typically when God gives us a vision for something we don’t currently see, we have a role to play with Him, in order to bring about the hoped for result!
I also suspect the concept of ’hopium’ could be behind the phrase about people, ‘not wanting to get their hopes up’. No one wants to be let down or disappointed yet delays and detours are inevitable enroute to realizing any worthwhile dream or goal.
It seems that in some way, it’s easier to rationalize away possibilities of good things coming if you don’t see ‘how’ something could come about. Instead, obstacles and negative consequences barreling down on hopes and dreams seem to trigger an emotional shut down of possibilities, so it becomes hard for people to hope for what they don’t see…
Worse, many people stop looking or hoping for good things because they don’t want to be disappointed. Instead of good things coming, they find themselves in an endless cycle of planning for the worst!
Yesterday I had a fuzzy head and a general lethargy in my overall emotional and physical well-being. I don’t have any validation for how or why it came on suddenly like that, but I do know that the night before I watched the sun go down on a day where the sky was littered with more chem trails than I think I’ve ever seen in one day.
if you’re not familiar with chem trails, I encourage you to do some researach online using a search engine like duck duck go to find out more.
I could have had a physical reaction perhaps to whatever fell from the sky, or I might have mentally looked at the sudden change in weather to a darker, cooler, gloomier looking day and attributed the atmospheric shift mentally in such a way to trigger a weaker, surrendered sort of response in my emotions.
Regardless, the point is that a day later (today), I woke up to sunshine, albeit more chem trails across the sky, with the first word that popped into my mind was ‘hopium’.
What followed that thought was how many times I’ve shared with people the great and growing hope God is birthing in me, and the ‘ya but’ comments that seem to be common when I share. The ‘ya buts’ are like a defensive mechanism, where people feel it’s necessary to proclaim about how it’s wise to prepare for what’s coming (what they believe they can see coming on the negative side).
How do we know what’s coming?
I’m pretty sure there’s a scripture that says to not worry about tomorrow for today has enough for us to deal with on it’s own (see Matthew 6:34). 😊
As I was pondering this, I thought of how Adam and Eve were deceived by the temptation to have their eyes open so they would know good and evil to be like God. Before this they only know good, even though evil was all around. God’s goodness covered and protected and provided for them because it’s all they knew and therefore all they saw. That’s very cool and very important and relevant for the world we’re living in today!
If we take our eyes off the good – the hope God gives us, and the promises He has made and confirmed for us, then we give credence to the evil – we validate that the devil has some sort of magical power to manipulate circumstances and cause us to struggle.
When we experience struggle, it’s a big neon light clue that the devil is involved and we need to look for the good. God doesn’t leave us, which means in the midst of whatever circumstance we’re struggling with, He will be found – when we look for Him!
Whether the heaviness I experienced yesterday was physical or mental isn’t relevant in light of God. My day was still filled with great conversations about hope and strategy, with some wonderful people He has brought into my life.
We have the promises that He confirmed by the shed blood of His son. That’s a covenant! It’s not a contract that says we have to be, do, think, or accomplish something in order to benefit from what’s already done. We have to accept that free gift though – which means at some point we have to get past our thinkers, to walk by faith, not by what we think we can see.
The question is about our faith. Do we have faith in our self, our circumstances, the government, health care system, some other person? Or do we have faith in the one, true, living, all loving, all knowing, all powerful, all present God of all creation?
It’s kind of an odd question if you really think about it – there’s only one answer!
God’s word says, “NOW, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13), and that, “NOW faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see (Hebrews 11:1).
Plus, there’s a whole lot more amazing scriptures confirming that at any time, we don’t have to fear the circumstances we think we see, that He is able to see us through when we fix our eyes with hopeful expectation on Him – the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews12:2).
Here’s the link to the video where I share some more on this!
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And may God bless you abundantly always and all ways!
Sam
