HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL

HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL

 In Alexander Pope’s “Essay on Man” written in 1732, the English poet penned this timeless line of prose: “Hope springs eternal in the human breast.”  His insight calls to mind three Jewish psychiatrists who lived in and around Vienna in the period leading up to World War II.

 The first of these three psychiatrists, Sigmund Freud, spent years studying people, striving to understand what makes us tick.  He reached the conclusion that the fundamental drive in human beings is the search for PLEASURE.  According to Freud, it’s our basic need for pleasure that explains why we do what we do.

 The second, Alfred Adler, also spent years studying human behavior.  His studies led him to disagree with Sigmund Freud.  Adler was convinced that the bottom line in understanding human behavior is POWER.  In his view, all of us grow up feeling somewhat inferior and powerless.  Thus, life becomes a drive to gain control, to feel more important and powerful.

 Viktor Frankl sought to follow in the footsteps of his mentors, Freud and Adler.  But before his career gained traction, World War II began.  The Nazi invasion brought danger and death to millions of Jews.  Freud and Adler were world renowned scholars, so they managed to escape.  Frankl wasn’t so fortunate.  He was arrested and detained in a Nazi concentration camp four long years.

 After the war ended, Frankl was released and resumed his career.  Carefully evaluating his experiences as a prisoner, he noted something strange and unexpected – that the people who survived were not always the ones that others would expect.  Many who were physically strong wasted away and died while others who were physically weak grew stronger and survived.  Why?  What was it that enabled them to hang on through the living hell of a Nazi concentration camp?

 Frankl reflected on the theories of his mentors.  Freud’s pleasure principle could not explain it.  For four desperate and terrible years, the men in his camp knew only pain, suffering and degradation.  Pleasure was not even a word in their vocabulary.  It certainly wasn’t pleasure that kept them going.

 What then of Adler’s theory about power being the basic human need?  That wouldn’t explain it either.  Frankl and his fellow Jews were completely powerless during their years in the concentration camp.  Each day they stared down the barrels of loaded guns, they were treated like animals, they felt enemy boots on their faces and watched helplessly while fellow Jews were executed via gas chamber genocide.  They neither had power, nor any prospects of power.

 So Viktor Frankl came up with his own theory.  He concluded that the primary difference between those who survived and those who perished was HOPE.  Those who survived never gave up the belief that their lives had value and meaning.  Despite horrendous circumstances, they believed that their suffering would eventually end, and they would once more live meaningful, purposeful lives.  What is this basic human drive?  According to Frankl, it is the need to live with a sense of purpose.  Not pleasure.  Not power.  MEANING which produces HOPE.

 Consider your present life situation.  What’s really going on with you?  More importantly, what are you HOPING and TRUSTING GOD for in the short- and long-term?  Whatever that is, it constitutes your LIFE-VISION, which must and shall be inscribed in the indelible and heavenly ink of HOPE.

Sisters and brothers, be continually blessed and please (above all else) MAKE SURE YOU ARE READY TO MEET YOUR SOON COMING KING.  Maranatha!