Looking for Hope

Published in

Christian Perspectives: Society and Life

7 min readOct 28, 2018

Looking for Hope

Two human beings lost in a forest with only a fire igniter and a machete, trying to figure out how to find their way out. They experience thirst, hunger, fatigue, depression, loneliness, a sense of lost hope.Their intuition has kicked in and they start to encounter a need to escape. They focus on the difficult trek they will be enduring. Full of anxiety and feeling distress, they cannot help but to want to fight for their life, unaware of what they will face. All they want to do is to better their circumstance. What will it cost them? and can they find hope.

Humans

A human being , also known as a person can be consider a rational animal. This means we have a physical body that acts, senses, feels emotions. and has a mind. Human beings are the most highly evolved inhabitants of earth’s ecosystem. Like everything else on the planet, we are the product of time and chance, of evolution and survival. When it comes down to it, human beings have nothing special, but our highly evolved brains. But even those brains, although capable of imagination, language, creativity, art, music, self-reflection, and reason are themselves merely the workings of biochemical processes and electrical impulses.Animals find ways to defend themselves. When some animals are subjected to difficult situations they cannot control, they stop trying to escape, others fight to survive. Human beings are the same. If you experience devastating defeats, a persistent situation that you couldn’t change, or experienced a terrifying situation that you could not control, your exposure to, then you may have lost hope for your ability to change your life or to change painful situations, but in some circumstances its a matter of life or death.

Fight or flight

There are many circumstances that can cause a person to want to escape the situation they are in, like their surrounding, environment or the mistrust of government officials. In order to have stability a person must feel the need to strive, given the right position or positive direction and if not, they seek to find change. Example of those who seek change are migrants. Migrants are people who attempt to permanently relocate to a new country, but who may be subject to removal by the government of that country. Every year, millions of people make difficult and often dangerous treks from their home countries to a new nation. Motivations for leaving are as varied as the immigrants themselves, some leave for opportunity, some for adventure. Many immigrants leave their countries in the hopes they will find higher-paying jobs, better schools and safer homes than they had access to in their home country. These families are often motivated by providing their children with a better place to live and better career potential than what they could have found if they did not move. Some immigrants simply leave their countries because they prefer to live someplace else. They feel the need to take on the fight or flight approach.

Migrants

Recently you may have heard of a caravan of Central American people on its way to the U.S.-Mexico border. As way of controlling, government official make it difficult for people to want to stay in their countries, not mention persecution. They continue to enforce their rules, set boundaries and even treat the people as less than. These people have started leaving their homelands because of the mistrust of official. They made the decision to leave their home countries, assessing that the danger of leaving was outstripped by the danger of facing gang death threats or feeding a family on $5 per day. These people have made the decision to go together, joining the caravan as it progressed, instead of alone like tens of thousands of their fellow Guatemalans and Hondurans (and Salvadorans) do every year.

Migrants, who enter Mexico illegally every day, usually ride in smugglers’ trucks or buses, or walk at night to avoid detection. The fact that the group of about 300 stragglers Friday was walking in broad daylight suggests they were adopting the tactics of the main caravan, which is large enough to be out in the open without fear of mass detention. More than a hundred Mexican federal officers carrying plastic shields abandoned a blockade they had formed on a bridge Saturday, allowing a caravan of thousands of Central American migrants to advance toward the United States.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto launched a program “You are home,” which promises shelter, medical attention, schooling and jobs to Central Americans who agree to stay in the southern Mexico states of Chiapas or Oaxaca. Authorities blocked a highway Saturday to tell people about the government’s offer. “Here in this truck right now you can get help,” he said. The fear of deportation has made thousand rejected the proposal. They said they could be willing to discuss it again once they reach Mexico City. Some fear if they take advantage of this plan they will be deported. In order to catch up with main caravan officers are ejecting migrant passengers off buses in recent days cracking down on smaller groups.

Sacrifice

These migrants have made the sacrifice to jump on these caravans leaving behind love one in order to provide for them. Such caravans are so overloaded that one man feel off and died. These social groups are wanting equality. Few people in the caravan appeared to have no funds and some would have gone hungry, if it wasn’t for the generosity of Mexicans and municipalities that offered them tamales and pineapple juice along the route. Many are wearing flip-flops, rubber clogs or sneakers that are falling apart. Many of the migrants, have faced the grueling heat and torrential rains. At night, the caravan members sleep on sidewalks and the floors of the town plaza before waking each morning to depart again for their daily marathon. It is so unfortunate that these people have to go through this in order to find hope, but they will stop at nothing. Just like the two people lost in a forest, these people are determine to change their circumstances. They know that they will face a difficult task, a long trek and even death, but the distress and vulnerability that they have to endure in their homelands have made them be determine to strive. We can try to overlook at the pain these people go through and judge them for wanting to enter different soils seeking hope, but if we have God’s heart we will see that we are all God’s children, God made us all equal without preference.

Biblical Thoughts

The Bible is a map on how to live a life according to God. He was the magnificent example through this journey call life. He came to this world as a man to show us direction. Ephesians 5:1-2 shows us how to walk; “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma”. 1 Corinthians 11:1 Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ. He continuously wants us to imitate Him. God loves us and wants us to walk in love. We need to be careful of judging others and setting them in a social class different then ours.1 Corinthians 5:12 says,For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?We cannot look at those who are trying to escape their unfortunate life without first knowing their situation. Romans 3:23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Migrants are persistent in finding stability and a new surrounding, where they can provide a better life for their family. They know that they will face different obstacles as they are seeking hope. Revelations 2:10 says, Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. God wants nothing but the best for us. Since the beginning He made a promise to Abraham that He would give him the promise land. These immigrants are looking for their promise land and they don’t care how they get there. Roman 8:18-23, For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates(Genesis 15:18). Humans have made many mistakes and sinned in God’s eyes, at one point God Even regretted creating man (Genesis 6:6), We cannot judge others for mistakes others have done.We need to leave the judgement to God. He stills forgives and loves us unconditionally, He will be the one to judge us according to our doings.