Faith, Hope and Charity... a closer look at Hope

I’m trying to understand the need for hope. In the Book of Mormon we read we can’t be saved without it. I remember reading in Survivors’ Club the rule of threes: You can live without food for three weeks. Water for three days. Air for three minutes. Hope for three seconds. It's essential to our existence and lives.

I’ve written in the past that faith is the great motivator and in one way it is. Our faith in an effect for something we do, the cause, which motivates our actions. A simple example: I have faith that by working and submitting my time sheets I’ll get paid. And I do. But getting paid isn’t why I work. I want the money because it supports a lifestyle I desire. The end is what I hope for. That’s really “why” I do what I do… there are things I hope for and my faith in a cause-effect relationship with others is how I go about attaining them.

Apart from that is charity. It is the great motivating force of Heaven: it’s why God does what He does. His love for us is why He set all this up, that we can become as Him, which is what He hopes for. It is an approach to things we desire from a position of strength and capacity. But it is focused on the needs of others. It is God-like because that’s how God is.

It’s a mini-chiasmus. One leg is faith, the apex is hope and the other leg is charity. We hope to become like God, to live with Him, to be saved. Where we are powerless to do for ourselves, we have faith in Christ that He will make up the difference in our behalf. But where we do have power to act, Charity governs our actions for that is how we best be like God.

This is why the scriptures say to be saved, to become like God, we need all three. Hope is our vision, it’s what we aspire to be. Faith is how we get there when the demands of the moment are beyond our abilities. And Charity is for those times when we have the power to act… it’s where we practice being like God.