Hope
I bore my testimony in church yesterday. I talked about how we think of the three legs of a chair: faith and hope and charity. We tend to focus on faith and charity the most. Faith is the belief in something that is not seen that is true. We need faith, that is, belief in Christ, in order to follow Him. We would not follow his teachings if they were not true, or if we did not believe they were true. Now I’m not talking about interpretations of what He meant, here. The core underlying belief: He’s the Son of God and He’s our Savior and Redeemer. Define your own terms. Going on.
Charity is the pure love of Christ. This means (she said, defining terms): us loving God and God loving us. Jesus Christ stated that loving God means following His commandments and trying to become like Him. He also said that we must love our neighbors, and he included everyone who has ever lived in the definition of “neighbors”. So: love God, recognize your own value because God loves you, and love everyone else.
But we don’t talk much about hope. It’s kind of assumed that it’s there, part of faith and love, I guess; you’re supposed to know what it means. Hope is wanting something. This is different from either faith, which is belief, or love, caring for yourself and others. Hope in God is wanting God to come, and more important, wanting what God wants. Looking forward with an eye of faith, that is, believing that He will come, and believing that it’s a good thing. His coming will bring all good things: joy, peace, prosperity as a group and as individuals because we will be united in love and caring for each other. God wants us to get along with each other, while maintaining God-like standards, including God’s standards of forgiveness and trust, while keeping appropriate boundaries and healing breaches as soon as may be. God wants us to allow others to choose for themselves, while choosing good things and good behavior ourselves.
Faith by itself won’t get us to God. It’s a necessary component, but the devils also believe Jesus Christ will come; they do not hope for it. Love alone will not get us to God. Love without faith is hopeless. Hah! It’s true. Loving someone and trying to help them, without believing they can change and without hope that they will change, is dry and bare. Loving someone, believing they can change, but without hope, means acting like they’re in a dead end. Hope is encouragement. Hope is excitement for a future we can only see in the mind’s eye, a vision of good things to come. Hope motivates us.
I told my children that I didn’t want to have a pet. I would rather raise children, and the reason is: children grow up. There is measurable progress. Eventually children become adults, more capable, more understanding, more loving and kind. Dogs, as loving and patient as they are, will never be intellectually more than insightful toddlers. Cats, while less obviously loving and patient, will not fill the same need to progress; they will never stop being agents of chaos. I want to put my efforts into people. People are still agents of chaos and intellectually imprecise. But I have hope that they can and will improve. They have the potential to become Gods, and I hope for that.
