A Perfect Brightness of Hope

In one of his most well-known invitations, Nephi wrote this to us towards the end of his record: “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” (2 Nephi 31:20). To have a steadfastness in Christ is to have steady faith and trust in Him, so this is really an invitation to cultivate the three Christian virtues: faith, hope, and charity. Of the three, hope probably receives the least amount of attention, but it should not be overlooked. Mormon taught us clearly what hope is in gospel terms. He wrote, “And again, my beloved brethren, I would speak unto you concerning hope. How is it that ye can attain unto faith, save ye shall have hope? And what is it that ye shall hope for? Behold I say unto you that ye shall have hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal, and this because of your faith in him according to the promise. Wherefore, if a man have faith he must needs have hope; for without faith there cannot be any hope” (Moroni 7:40-42). Hope, just like faith, is in Christ and the promises that He has given us. We have hope for the future because we trust that the resurrection is real and that we shall be lifted up by Him. I like the definition in the Guide to the Scriptures: “The confident expectation of and longing for the promised blessings of righteousness. The scriptures often speak of hope as anticipation of eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ.” Faith means that we trust the Lord enough to do what He asks, hope means that we are confident that the promised blessings will come for righteousness. To have hope is to have optimism for the future as we strive to follow Jesus and like Abraham to be “fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform” (Romans 4:21).

                  Perhaps my favorite scripture about hope is this one from Moroni (though it may have been Ether who originally said it): “Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God” (Ether 12:4). Even if we are watching the destruction of our entire society because of wickedness (which both Moroni and Ether did), we can still have hope in God and the promises of a better world that He has given us. Hope means that no matter what happens to us here in this life, we are confident in what the Lord is preparing for the faithful in the future. One of the songs that describes this kind of hope for me is “One Day More” from Les Misérables. The lyrics include these: 

One day to a new beginning

Raise the flag of freedom high

Every man will be a king

Every man will be a king

There's a new world for the winning

There's a new world to be won

Do you hear the people sing?

…

Tomorrow we'll discover

What our God in Heaven has in store

One more dawn

One more day

One day more 

Tomorrow indeed we will discover what God has in store for us, and each day is a new beginning—a new world even—and gift waiting for us through our hope in Jesus Christ. And so, no matter the challenges that we face and the difficulty we have in obtaining the blessings of the Lord we seek, we “plow in hope” knowing that “he will fulfill all his promises” to the faithful (1 Corinthians 9:10, Alma 37:17).