one step at a time.
I remember discussing with a friend which scriptural principle came first: faith, hope, or charity. It felt like hope in something greater could help someone feel a desire to gain greater faith. But faith causes someone to feel hopeful and want to do good. And now ten years later, the answer settled in my brain all because of college football.
"Why do I let them give me hope?"
Our family’s favorite football team had just lost another last-second heartbreaker. And my teenage nephew was beside himself.
"Why? Why do I let them give me hope?"
"Because you believe in them,” I tried to console. “And that’s not a bad thing. It’s good to believe in people."
After this brief conversation, I started rethinking my attempt at a “post-football game pep talk.” Because believing in people is not always what it is cracked up to be. You get burned. Sometimes a lot. Making the burden of hope heavy. To place belief in imperfect, messy humans? Disappointment is always lurking in the wings. Humans will always make mistakes. Especially in football. As a family friend often says,
"Sports will always let you down." And may I add, so will people.
So why would God ask us to have hope? Something so fragile with almost guaranteed disappointment. To help us build character? To make us grapple with hard lessons and feelings?
And then it occurred to me.
In this scriptural sequence, there is an order of operations. There is something that has to come before hope. Or someone. The first step toward hope is knowing who the hope is built upon. Not what where or when. But who.
It is one’s faith in Jesus Christ that opens our hearts to pure hope. Because He is perfect. He will never let us down. He will never be less than our expectations. He will never be a last-second, Hail Mary heartbreaker. In his eternal mission of salvation, He will never disappoint us.
Faith hope and charity are not a checklist of unrelated attributes to find like a treasure hunt.
"Hey I found hope!'
"Look, charity is over here!"
“Wait, where did you say you found faith?”
It is a divine pattern of becoming a joyful, eternal child of Heavenly Parents. Today. Not in some distant eternal life. But living the joy of Christ and Their plan now. In the present, despite the mortal disappointments surrounding us.
First, you put everything you have into gaining a closer relationship with Jesus Christ. Building your faith in Him. Understanding His mission and true character. Grappling with what one of the most honest and forthright Beings in the universe meant when He repeated again and again, “Fear not.”
Second, you let all the little glimmers of light about Christ fill you up with hope. Change your outlook on life. Blessings. Trials. Mistakes. Accomplishments. If He will never let you down and He already overcame every darkness or difficulty of this world, then how would it be to live. Every. Single. Moment. Brimming with hope in Christ. And the battle that He has already won.
Third, let this shift in perspective spill over into how you think about and treat others. Christ didn’t just save you, He saved everyone. No one is in need of less saving than anyone else. We are all on equal footing in our imperfections. No one is above another. In His pure love, our relationships shift from a push and pull about who is right who is worthy, or who is how we want them to be…to a place of openness for all to be messy and still eternally valued. Because we all need Him. Equally.
Faith in Jesus Christ leads us to eternal hope found through His atoning power. And this hope starts to pull the curtains from our eyes. Because we are no longer focused on the complicated nature of ourselves or others. We are focused on the simplicity of Christ’s example. And how we can learn to love like Him.
One little step after another, the pattern repeats and repeats and repeats. A pathway lined with reminders of how to become like Jesus Christ along the path back Home.
Faith, hope, charity.
Faith. Hope. Charity.
Faith.
Hope.
Charity.
