Well the week is halfway through. But the question is,

“Are you through?”

Do you still have the same motivation and the same enthusiasm? Do you have the same fire burning in you now that you did on Monday when we started out? Or have you found that after a few days, all the pressures of work and the cares of life have started to drain you?

Now you are starting to feel a bit more discouraged, and you don't have quite the same enthusiasm that you started the week with.

Solomon had something very interesting to say about this. In Proverbs 13:12 he says:

Fleeting hope is discouraging, but a core desire fulfilled is a tree of life.

The Importance of Hope

You need to ask yourself the question,

“How long does your hope last? How long does it take before you become discouraged and give up?

You see hope is very important. Hope is what keeps you aiming towards the target – if you have a target.

If you have listened to or read my teaching entitled 'Dreams, Goals, Plans and Action', then I hope that you have taken your dreams and translated them into goals, and that you have put some plan into motion to reach your goals.

If you have done everything that you need to do in order to reach that goal, there is only one thing that will keep you going. It is the hope that you will reach the goal.

If you give up hope you are not going to reach the goal are you? This is because as soon as you lose hope you stop reaching forward. You stop pushing ahead.

You see the goal is your carrot. It keeps you going. But what happens if you lose hope? What happens if after trying and trying, and waiting again and again, it just seems like you are never going to reach your goal?

What happens is you give up hope. And according to Solomon, when that happens you start to get discouraged. He used the term 'It makes the heart sick.'

Well a sick heart is caused by a person who is discouraged, depressed or demotivated. He is a person who has lost it.

Unfortunately it is often like that with hope. You start off with great hope, but the experiences of life take that hope away. Then you give up and become discouraged.

When that happens you quit. And when you quit you will never reach your goal. But what I would like to tell you right now is that there is something better than ordinary hope.

There is one powerful force that will keep you going even when things seem hopeless; even when you start to give up hope that you will ever see your goal or fulfill your dreams.

Core Desire

That force is called a 'core desire', because it takes more than just a simple desire to do this. It takes a driving force within you; a consuming desire and passion. I believe that is the desire that Solomon was speaking about here when he says,

A core desire that is fulfilled is like a tree of life.

The picture of a tree is a good one. What does a tree do? It continues to bear fruit over and over again. It is not a little plant like an herb that bears once and then it is over. It is a tree that continues to give life.

What does that mean to you? It means that it continues to keep you going and keeps you motivated.

You continue to maintain those feelings that will help you to push on towards the goal, even though the whole world is against you and nothing seems to be working out.

Even though it seems that people are opposing you and your goals and dreams are being blocked, there is something burning inside of you – a fire that will not be put out.

That is the fire that you need to keep motivated. You see motivation is great while it lasts. But what happens when you lose it?

Do you know how easy it is to lose motivation? All it takes is for somebody to say something negative to you, or for somebody to give you a vote of no confidence.

It takes somebody to say to you,

“You're foolish to try and aim for that goal. You know you'll never reach it. I mean I look at you and you are just not capable of being a millionaire. Why don't you give it up? Don't be stupid. Just be an ordinary person like the rest of us.”

That could take away your hope. But when you have a core desire burning inside of you, you're not going to lose it.

Faith, Hope and Love Work Together

You see there are three forces involved and I have taught this elsewhere. They are faith, love and hope.

Faith is like the charge in a gun, or it is like a bullet. If you have a laser gun it is the actual laser charge.

Love is the trigger that ignites it and fires that power. But hope is the gun sight that you use to keep your weapon aiming at the target.

Now if you don't keep aiming at the target you are not going to hit it. If you get distracted in the middle of your aim, you are going to miss and you will fail to reach your goal.

There are plenty of forces out there, and there is an enemy at work out there to discourage you from reaching your goal. He wants to prevent you from hitting the target and he tries to steal your hope and take it away.

What you need is a burning fire. You need a core desire within you that doesn't give up.

When things go against you and people discourage you; when circumstances seem to block the thing that you are aiming for, something inside of you will not give up or let go.

There is a fire inside of you that continues to burn. And when people try and pour water on that fire it just continues to burn.

That is what will keep your hope going. It will keep you aiming at the target and make sure that you reach your goal.

Now the most important question you must be asking right now is,

“So how do I get this? How do I develop a core desire?”

We will talk about it some more tomorrow. I will see you then and we'll discuss a little bit more about core desires and how to develop them.

I hope that by the end of the week you will be so motivated that you will be ready to face not only the next week, but the next month, the next quarter, the next year – and the whole of your life that lies ahead of you