The other day I was considering personal struggles I see in the lives of people I know, and occasionally in my own life. My mind was led to an idea I worked on many years ago. I jokingly called it the ‘faith-o-meter’. The idea is a sort of continuum that spans from no faith on the left, to the prophet Alma’s entreaty to find a “desire to believe”, to having belief. Next comes faith, as in acting on the belief. Then finally at the extreme right I put ‘knowledge’. My positioning ideas on the faith-o-meter continuum is not a political statement. One of the points I came to back then was that we are not always in the same place in the continuum on all things. We might have faith in the Plan of Salvation, a belief in spiritual gifts, and a knowledge of the Law of Tithing. Alma’s faith-as-a-seed sermon speaks about coming to a “perfect knowledge” of “that thing” (Alma 32:34). Where our focus is, there is where we progress from left to right on the faith-o-meter.
So why did this trigger in my mind over the trials I’ve been seeing. In a word, hope. Back when I came up with this faith-o-meter idea I struggled a lot with where hope fits in. There is hope the verb, and hope the noun. For me, hope the verb is weaker, as in ‘I hope it’s true’. In that sense it seems somewhere on the left side of the continuum, maybe between a desire to believe and belief? The noun version, however is something I’ve struggled with for a long time. The word turns up in many places in the scriptures. For me, I’m thinking the noun version is not in one spot along the continuum, but is the outcome of the continuum. The further one moves from no faith, toward ‘a perfect knowledge’, the more hope one has. For example, Alma also says “if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true” (Alma 32: 21). In this case the verb hope means to me that one has hope (noun) as an outcome of faith.
The news of the world and what we see around us in the personal lives of others or ourselves can cause discouragement. That’s the opposite of hope. The phrase that came to my mind in this string of thought was in 2 Nephi 31:20 “Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men.” The verse goes on to talk about enduring.
I hope each of us stays grounded in the truths of the gospel and we don’t allow the ‘wisdom of the world’ to discourage our faith that leads to a “perfect brightness of hope”.
So why did this trigger in my mind over the trials I’ve been seeing. In a word, hope. Back when I came up with this faith-o-meter idea I struggled a lot with where hope fits in. There is hope the verb, and hope the noun. For me, hope the verb is weaker, as in ‘I hope it’s true’. In that sense it seems somewhere on the left side of the continuum, maybe between a desire to believe and belief? The noun version, however is something I’ve struggled with for a long time. The word turns up in many places in the scriptures. For me, I’m thinking the noun version is not in one spot along the continuum, but is the outcome of the continuum. The further one moves from no faith, toward ‘a perfect knowledge’, the more hope one has. For example, Alma also says “if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true” (Alma 32: 21). In this case the verb hope means to me that one has hope (noun) as an outcome of faith.
The news of the world and what we see around us in the personal lives of others or ourselves can cause discouragement. That’s the opposite of hope. The phrase that came to my mind in this string of thought was in 2 Nephi 31:20 “Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men.” The verse goes on to talk about enduring.
I hope each of us stays grounded in the truths of the gospel and we don’t allow the ‘wisdom of the world’ to discourage our faith that leads to a “perfect brightness of hope”.
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