You Have to Believe There’s Reason for Hope

Within my short life, a lot has occurred.  September 11^th happened before my 13 year old eyes.  The two large scale wars that ensued still see conflict ten years after it was first thought we had reason to enter a war.  I returned home from Mongolia to find the economy in the worst condition it has seen since the Great Depression.  I worry about being able to get a job after graduation.  This afternoon, I saw videos of the devastation of a tsunami in Japan and debris floating across the Pacific.

Short of the outward unrest, I have always struggled to find a way to live well.  Inner storms rage all the time.  College is a time in which we are supposed to find ourselves, but it often feels like I am missing something that everyone else seems to get.  Many of the people dearest to me now find themselves carrying burdens so heavy they feel as if they are about to collapse.  All my life I have been the type to try to lift and share that yoke.  But I know that there are some lessons that are best learned through one’s own experience.  I struggle to accept the fact that there may be nothing I can do to make that experience any less wrenching.

But there is one concept that has always been my anchor.

The story is told of a family of young women being led by a mother whose husband is fighting in the Civil War.  The second daughter, the one cohesive and indefatigably positive influence in all their lives, contracts scarlet fever and dies shortly thereafter.  The mother, in an attempt to bring some comfort to herself and her heartbroken daughter, sings passionately, “You have to believe there’s reason for hope.”

When our hearts are bitter, wounded, and torn, we may simply ask, “What is that reason?”

When things are bleak and depressing, we often call it dark.  Hope, in contrast, could be compared to light.  Said the wise man, “Press forward … with a perfect brightness of hope,” (2 Nephi 31:20).  Hope is a desire to believe in something better despite present conditions.

I often find myself asking the question, “Why are people afraid of the dark?”  The eventual answer that I come to is very simple—we can’t see what is around us.  The most terrifying thing in life is the unknown.  When lives hang by a thread in a hospital, when spiritual self-destruction seems to be decided by a coin toss, and when the future is unclear, our minds have a tendency to assume the worst.  That kind of uncertainty can hurt—deeply.

Several years ago, my sister gave birth to triplets almost two months prematurely.  All three boys had terrible health problems in the first months of their lives that threatened to be fatal at the slightest turn.  I could hear her voice tremble as she called asking to talk to mom.  The thought that she might lose any one of her precious little boys was probably the worst thing her mind could conceive.  She was in the midst of the darkness of the unknown.  Hope helped her stay calm.  Her sons are now healthy and strong.

The thing about light that dispels fear is the fact that it allows us to see.  It reveals all things around us how they really are.  There is no more unknown.  It reveals to us truth.  In fact, scripture calls truth, “Knowledge of things as they are… and as they are to come,” (D&C 93:24).  Light and truth can be used interchangeably.  

Light is truth.  Light never lies.

If hope is light and light is truth, then why do we get discouraged and fall into despair? Our eyes are not conditioned to see the light of hope.  The closer we are to a light source, the more able we are to see.  Thus we really only need to know where that light source exists and how to see it.

“That which is of God is light, and he that receiveth light and continueth in God receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day.  And again, verily I say unto you, and I say it that you may know the truth, that you may chase darkness from among you;” (D&C 50:24-25).  If light, truth, and hope are interchangeable, let’s rewrite what we just read.

“That which is of God is [hope], and he that receiveth [hope] and continueth in God receiveth more [hope]; and that [hope] groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day.  And again, verily I say unto you, and I say it that you may know [hope], that you may chase darkness from among you.”

To get more of this hope, this light, we need to “continue in God”.  How?  We press forward in God, in Christ—we love as he did, we feast upon his words to gain more knowledge of things as they are, and we become more like Christ.  God’s instructions are not an arbitrary list, but a guideline by which we are guaranteed that we will never be left in darkness, that we will never be hopeless, and we can endure happily to the very end.

Hope is an essential requirement for eternal life.  We need this light to live without fear.  We can chase away darkness with this light.

If truth is knowledge of things as they will be, how are we to know of things to come?

A simple example demonstrates:
I recently watched a video of the 2007 Fiesta Bowl football game between Boise State and Oklahoma.  Oklahoma was a well-established program, and was expected to win.  After leading by 18 points, Boise State saw itself down 35-28 with 1:02 remaining.  Yet I was never worried that a team I liked would lose.  When Oklahoma scored a touchdown in overtime, I was not concerned.  I knew that Boise State would score a touchdown and, in a miraculous play, be successful on a game winning conversion.

I knew the final score.

Christ put it most eloquently when he said to his best friends, “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye may have peace.  In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world,” (John 16:33).

Life is not easy, but Christ has overcome it all.  Though Satan may identify our weaknesses and mount an attack that we may not feel we can conquer—though he may score countless points against us, we need only remember one truth: we cannot lose.  Every single point will be made up and overcome.  The darkness that the adversary tries to encompass us with only has power until we can turn on the light of hope and feel our Savior’s love.  Perhaps the darkness around us is only a reminder that we need to call on Father to turn on the light.

In the end, we know the final score.  Though it seems a close contest, we know that, in the end, good will forever reign over evil.  Hope, that light, illuminates this truth in our eyes.  The gospel teaches us how to ask our Father to turn on that light and point us to a Savior, our reason for hope, and once he does, we will see that there is nothing for us to fear.

It is then up to us to stay in that light.  Will we?