When I was in high school, my best friend, Ron Cullimore and I often went to a hill above Burton Elementary School in my hometown of Kaysville, Utah. We called it Inspiration Point. It was a humble little hill, but from there you could gaze up at the stars and out towards the Great Salt Lake, Antelope Island and the Oquirrh Mountains. You could imagine a world beyond. From there, we talked about all sorts of things, but mostly dreamed and shared our hopes for the future. We each hoped to go on a mission, return to meet a wonderful girl, be married in the temple and have five children. It was always five children. For the most part, our hopes were fulfilled. Ron went on a mission, met and married Pat and had four (not quite five) children and now 15 grandchildren. I also went on a mission, met and married Bonnie, had those five children and now 13 grandchildren as of next month. Bonnie, I want you to know that you are the love of my life. I’ve loved sharing life’s journey with you. You are more than I ever hoped for as I lay there dreaming on Inspiration Point.
Today I want to talk about hope. As a student and teacher of marketing, my interest in hope comes from one of my favorite quotes. When someone asked Charles Revson, founder of Revlon, what business he was in, he said, “In the factory we make cosmetics, but in the store, we sell hope.”
But hope goes much deeper than that. It is one of three Christian virtues, along with faith and charity, that qualify one for God’s work. 1 These virtues are key characteristics of God, as well as gifts from God we are expected to nourish. By exercising faith, hope and charity, we both draw closer to God and become as He is. It has always been clear to me why faith and charity are included in this triad of virtues. In First Corinthians 13, Paul speaks of faith, hope and charity, but focuses on charity and declares it the greatest of the three. In Moroni 7, Mormon speaks of faith, hope and charity, but devotes most of his discourse to the power of faith. Hope seems sandwiched in the middle: acknowledged, but relatively forgotten.
The Meaning of Hope
So what is hope and why do the Lord and His prophets consider it such a fundamental part of both our earthly and eternal experience? Hope is both a noun and a verb. As a verb, “to hope” is the act of yearning or longing for a desired outcome that is uncertain, but considered possible. Regarding the uncertainty of hope, the Apostle Paul emphasized that “Hope that is seen is not hope; for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?” 2
We have both objects of hope and sources of hope. President Uchtdorf differentiates between things we hope for and things we hope in. 3 We hope for such things as safety, health, wealth, beauty, love, marriage, peace, contentment, forgiveness, happiness, success, eternal life and getting an “A” on my midterm. Our hopes are based on the things we hope in, such as qualified doctors, modern medicine, the fruits of hard work, our own intelligence, the love of others, the priesthood, God’s love, Christ’s atonement and maybe the mercy of our professors.
We hope for ourselves and we hope for others.
We have little hopes and big hopes; short-term hopes, long-term hopes and medium-term hopes that lead to long-term hopes; temporal hopes and eternal hopes.
Hope gives meaning to life. When we lose hope, there is no reason to press forward. Hope’s bright flame motivates us to strive for a better life and a better world. Laini Taylor, writer of fantasy books for young people, put it beautifully: “Hope can be a powerful force. Maybe there's no actual magic in it, but when you know what you hope for most and hold it like a light within you, you can make things happen, almost like magic.”
What Do We Hope For?
Brothers and Sisters, what do you hope for? I’m going to give you an assignment. I want you to think for a moment of the three things that right now in your life you most hope for. I’ll give you a few seconds. If possible, write them down.
Now, reflect on your list and answer the following questions:
• First, “What is the nature of my hopes?” Are they focused on me or on others? Are they near term, medium-term or long-term? Little or big? Temporal or eternal?
• Second, “How hopeful, or confident am I that the things I most hope for will actually happen?”
• Third, “What is my hope based on?”
• Finally, “How do I feel when I reflect on my hopes? How strong is my longing or yearning?”
Stories of Hope
I would love to talk with each of you about your most heart-felt hopes. But since I can’t share all of your hopes today, I would like to share some stories of hope.
I found several stories in just one issue, June 2016, of the Ensign:
• Ephrem, a boy from Ethiopia suffered hunger, lack of shelter, the loss of both parents, life in an orphanage, and an adopted family that fell apart. Through it all, his hope and faith sustained him. He was blessed with small miracles, including finding the Church and receiving a testimony of Christ. He eventually served a mission in Texas.
• Andrew, a deacon with a rare disease called Friedreich’s ataxia that affects his balance and coordination, hoped to pass the sacrament. His hope was fulfilled with the help of his gentle father who steadied Andrew’s frail and wavering body against his arm and helped him hold the sacrament tray.
• John long hoped to find a woman he could marry in the temple. His hope was sustained by knowing that Heavenly Father loves him and has a plan for him. He finally found true love and married in the temple at the age of 42.
• David struggled with ADHD. As a teenager, he attempted suicide and moved away from home. Homeless and without hope, he reached out to God in prayer, then found the Church and was baptized. Sometime later, David received proper treatment for his ADHD. His bishop recommended that he enroll in the Pathway program, which started the path to an exciting career in software engineering. As he explained, “I discovered feelings of peace and hope that I had never before experienced. I hadn’t even known it was possible to obtain feelings of peace and hope of this magnitude.”
In an article entitled, “Learning to Hope” in the August 2007 edition of the Liahona, Mariama Kallon described unspeakable horrors that she and her family experienced at the hands of Civil War rebels in Sierre Leone, in Africa. Once, when her health and safety were in desperate peril, she said a silent, pleading prayer and was saved by a miracle. Eventually, Mariama found and joined the Church, which provided her with food, a blanket and a hygiene kit. The food kept her alive. When rebels burned down the homes in her town, she shared her hygiene kit with others. The blanket sheltered her and others for several days until she used it to wrap an old woman who had died and had nothing to be buried in. Eventually, Miariama was called to the Salt Lake City Temple Square Mission. When she took a tour of the Church’s Humanitarian Center, she recognized blankets, food and hygiene kits like those she had received. “This is where they came from!” she thought to herself. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she remembered how these things brought her hope during very trying times in Sierra Leone.
Stories from Church magazines are inspiring, but inspiring stories of hope are all around us. Recently, I talked with my colleague, Erin Frederick who last Spring shattered her tibia, the bone just below the knee. Always active, Erin suddenly couldn’t walk. True to her determined spirit, she came to work as soon as she was able, teaching in a wheelchair. During the days of final exams, she suffered an embolism, or blood clot that nearly killed her. After recovering from that, she was determined to do all in her power to help herself heal. She yearns for the day when she will again hike in the mountains. With her determination, fed by hope, I am confident she will.
But this isn’t even half of Erin’s story of hope. About nine years ago, her husband Matt suffered a massive stroke at age 47. Before his stroke, Matt was intelligent, successful, engaging and healthy. After the stroke, doctors doubted he would live. When he survived, they predicted he would never be able to read. Erin and her family were devastated, but neither they nor Matt lost hope. Recovery was painfully slow, yet largely through the help and love of others, small miracles helped Matt progress. To show his love and support, Clayton Hubner, former faculty member at BYU-Hawaii, and a long-time friend of the Fredericks, called Matt about every two weeks, carrying on a somewhat one-way conversation since Matt couldn’t respond. Sometime during their first two years in Hawaii, Matt’s brother-in-law came to visit. While here, he read a simple novel and offered to read it out loud to Matt. He left the book with Matt and challenged him to read it. This small act of love sparked a ray of hope in Matt, who had been a voracious reader before his stroke. For two months, Matt read the first two pages over and over again. Gradually, he could read more. Eight months later he proudly pronounced that he had finished the book. Since then, Matt has made remarkable progress. He recently traveled alone to the mainland, navigating two separate flight changes and finding and checking himself into a hotel. He is now a frequent guest speaker at the University of Hawaii Medical School, where he tells his story of recovery, using a Powerpoint presentation he prepared himself, and fields questions from the audience. After years of depending on Erin and others to fulfill his hopes, he now provides hope to Erin, who hopes to join him on his hikes in the mountains near their home. Erin admitted that Matt will never be everything he was before the stroke, but in many ways, he is much more. What they have gone through has not been easy. There have been times when all they had to cling to was hope. But Erin treasures how she and Matt have grown in ways they never could have experienced if it weren’t for the stroke.
I, too, have had many personal experiences with hope. As a senior at BYU-Provo, I was filled with hope. I met Bonnie and knew immediately she was the one I wanted to marry. This was confirmed through several powerful spiritual experiences. It took a few months, but on New Year’s Eve I closed the deal when she said “yes”. On May 7, we were married in the Salt Lake Temple. I was also accepted into Harvard’s MBA program. Two of my fondest hopes were fulfilled. We loved our time in the Boston area and I earned my MBA, but had a hard time finding the type of job I hoped for. I found one in Salt Lake City, but it really wasn’t a good fit and I was never happy there. After 18 months, I lost my job, with a wife and two small children to provide for. This was a huge blow to my confidence, but I never lost hope. During the following ten years, many aspects of life were great. I had a wonderful wife, for whom I thanked the Lord every day. We added two children, loved serving in the Princeton Ward and lived near family and lifelong friends. However, the hopes I had for my career were not being met.
During this time, I taught on the side at the University of Phoenix and then the University of Utah. I enjoyed teaching and considered making a career of it. That meant going back to school to get a PhD. I talked with professors and administrators at Weber State University and the University of Utah, who gave mixed advice. I asked Craig Sudbury, a member of our stake presidency, to give me a blessing that I might know what to do. Bro. Sudbury started the blessing somewhat haltingly, but the Spirit suddenly kicked in with promises for what was in store if I pursued the PhD. It was like having a second patriarchal blessing.
With the hope this blessing gave me, I applied to six PhD programs. I particularly hoped the University of Michigan would accept me. It was the highest rated program on my list and located in a college town we thought would be good for our family. Two universities immediately accepted me, the most promising of which was the University of Washington in Seattle. However, weeks passed and I heard nothing from the University of Michigan. Thinking the University of Washington was going to be our best opportunity, Bonnie and I flew to Seattle at our own expense to see how we felt about it. Surprisingly, we didn’t feel good at all. We returned to Salt Lake City confused and discouraged. Then literally one day after returning, Claes Fornell, chair of the PhD program at the University of Michigan’s Graduate School of Business, called and invited me to attend their program. When I told Bonnie the news, we both knew that the University of Michigan was where we were supposed to be. At age 38, with four children, we made the huge leap of faith to leave our home in Salt Lake and be poor college students for at least four years, all based on the hope that our life would be richer for it. Things went very well at Michigan. After graduating, I joined the faculty at the University of Hawaii, which led us to BYU-Hawaii, the place we needed to be, both for my career and my family.
So far, the stories of hope have had happy endings. But what about times when what we most hope for isn’t fulfilled, such as the experience of our good friend, Pam Palmer, and her husband, Mike. Mike was a BYU-Hawaii faculty member when he was stricken with cancer. As with most cancer patients, Mike and his family hoped to beat it. Shortly after he was diagnosed, Mike gave Pam a blessing in which he blessed her that she and her children would not be left without his support through the next 40 years. Pam feels that this blessing gave Mike hope that he would recover, even when doctors gave him little or no hope. Many blamed Mike and Pam for giving their children false hope. Mike and Pam knew that the chances for recovery were slim, but they reasoned that living with hope was better than living without it. As author Marian Zimmer Bradley wrote: “The road that is built in hope is more pleasant to the traveler than the road built in despair, even though they both lead to the same destination.” The Palmers chose the road of hope. When things looked especially grim, Mike received a blessing from Dallin Oaks and Jeffrey Holland, who were visiting Hawaii at the time. In their blessing, they assured Mike that it was right to hope for recovery, that this temporal life is a blessing worth fighting for. On the other hand, they made very clear that Mike’s hope extended beyond this life. Not long after, Mike passed away, leaving Pam alone to care for their six children. In the end, Mike wasn’t there physically to support the children and Pam, but they often felt his presence, reaching out to support them from the other side of the veil.
One of the most spiritual experiences of my life occurred when my Mom was first diagnosed with cancer. As anyone who knew her would attest, my Mom was one of the most vibrant, loving, selfless persons on earth. If anyone deserved to live, and would have the will to live, it was Mom. We were all hopeful she would beat the cancer. I went to the hospital to see her and give her a blessing. I fully expected to bless her that she would overcome the cancer and be made whole. However, shortly after starting the blessing, I had an overwhelming feeling that many of Mom’s loved ones who had passed on were in the room, surrounding her with loving arms outstretched, welcoming her to their Heavenly home. I knew instantly that Mom wouldn’t survive the cancer, but would be welcomed home when she died. I didn’t share this experience with anyone except maybe Bonnie until after Mom passed away. I didn’t want to discourage anyone from having hope and sharing their hope with Mom. My Aunt Lucy, who was a nurse, and my Grandma Jones were particular sources of hope. Their hope that she would continue to live in this life wasn’t granted, but we all knew that Mom had hope for a better life.
What These Stories Teach Us About Hope
These stories illustrate three elements of hope that make it such a beautiful and critical Christian virtue.
• First, when we hope we yearn or long for something that we desire, but don’t now have. This yearning or longing inspires us to act. Peter speaks of a lively hope. 4 Paul admonishes us to “show … diligence to the full assurance of hope” 5 and to “plow in hope” 6. Hoping for something inspires us to dig a little deeper and work a little harder to make our hopes come true.
• Second, because there is some level of uncertainty and because we often don’t have full control over the outcome, we generally must depend on others, including God, to fulfill our hopes. Relying on others requires meekness. As Mormon says in Moroni 7:43: “And again, I say unto you that a man cannot have faith and hope, save he shall be meek and lowly of heart.” 7
• Finally, when we have hope, we have some degree of belief that the desired outcome will happen. This belief brightens our lives, lightens our load and gives us the strength to carry on. As Scottish writer Samuel Smiles wrote: “Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey towards it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us... It lends promise to the future and purpose to the past. It turns discouragement to determination.”
Even when hope seems dim, as it did with the Palmers, living with hope strengthens us and gives life purpose. In “Man’s Search for Meaning”, Victor Frankl reflects on prisoners’ efforts to survive the Nazi death camps of World War II. Frankl explains:
“We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation, when facing a fate that cannot be changed. For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph, to turn one's predicament into a human achievement. When we are no longer able to change a situation—just think of an incurable disease such as inoperable cancer—we are challenged to change ourselves.”
Returning to the three Christian virtues, how is hope related to faith and charity? Perhaps hope comes first. Our yearning ignites our desire to develop faith, but hope requires some degree of faith that desired outcomes will happen. We need something to “hope in”. According to Paul, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” 8 Mormon asks, “How is it that ye can attain unto faith, save ye shall hope?” but then explains that “if a man have faith, he must needs have hope; for without faith there cannot be any hope.” 9 Regarding charity, hope sparks the spiritual light necessary for Christ-like love, but as shown repeatedly in our stories, hope is nurtured through love. It seems clear, then, that faith, hope and charity are interdependent. You can’t have one without the other.
How Can We Keep Hope Burning Brightly?
Knowing that hope enriches our lives, what must we do to keep it burning brightly? Many, especially you students, are likely blazing with hope. If so, cherish and nurture it. And don’t be greedy. Share your hope and be a beacon of hope for others, like my old friends and new heroes, Kerry and Marianne Hopkin. A few years ago, while serving in the stake presidency of the Boston, Massachusetts stake, Kerry worked with the Haitian Branch. He took special interest in teenage brothers, Carlens and Hantzly Murat, whose school in Haiti had been destroyed by an earthquake. They were sent to live with relatives in Boston, but were basically left to fend for themselves, knowing very little English. Kerry and Marianne decided to take them in and become their surrogate parents. The Hopkins enrolled them in an excellent school, tutored them in school work and the English language, taught them life skills and the gospel, and kept them enrolled in seminary and church activities. Kerry got up every morning and drove them 10 miles from Needham to Boston so they could attend 6 a.m. seminary. Carlens is now serving in the Florida Tampa Mission and Hantzly in the Florida Ft. Lauderdale Mission. Since then, the Hopkins have taken in other Haitian children, giving them hope they probably never dreamed of.
But for many, hope has dimmed. Why is that? Remember that there are two essential properties of hope. First, we yearn for something we desire. Second, we have some belief that what we hope for may come true. If either our yearning or our belief diminish, hope diminishes. I offer three main reasons our yearning or belief may diminish:
• First, the hard knocks of life just wear us down. We all have setbacks, often through no fault of our own, that try our faith in ourselves, others and God and diminish our hope.
• Second, sin diminishes both our faith and yearning for the blessings that come from righteousness.
• Finally, apathy. As Jeff Caneen described in his recent devotional address, our lives sometimes plateau. Many of our earlier hopes may have already come true. Some hopes may have simply faded away, and we can’t find the motivation to identify and work on new ones.
If your hopes have dimmed for any of these reasons, I encourage you to take inventory of your hopes. Decide what you hope for and then make those hopes come alive. I love this quote from American novelist, Barbara Kingsolver: “The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.”
As you nurture your hopes, take Alma’s metaphor of growing faith as your model. 10 Look for even a kernel or ray of hope. If it is a righteous hope, your hope will grow if you plant it, cultivate it, fertilize it, water it. Think of what you need to do personally to make it grow. Seek help. Don’t forget to pray and seek the guidance of the Holy Ghost. Look for ways that you can be a source of hope for others. As you enliven hope in others, your own hope will grow.
The Atonement of Christ: Ultimate Hope
As you take inventory of your hopes, remember that there are temporal hopes and eternal hope, or as Neal Maxwell described, ultimate hope. Our temporal hopes are good. They keep us going, striving for a better life. They brighten our lives. But to live life to its fullest, our temporal hopes must be rooted in our ultimate hope for eternal life, made possible by the atonement of Christ. As Howard W. Hunter said, “Christ’s way is not only the right way, but ultimately the only way to hope and joy.”
Two verses from scripture powerfully summarize the role hope plays in our lives and the central role that Christ and Heavenly Father play in feeding our hope:
From Ether 12: 4: “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.” 11
From 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. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father, ye shall have eternal life.” 12
To close, please join me in singing the first verse of the hymn, “Press Forward Saints”.
Press forward Saints, with steadfast faith in Christ,
With hope’s bright flame alight in heart and mind;
With love of God, and love of all mankind,
Allelujah! Allelujah! Allelujah! 13
May hope’s flame shine brightly in the hearts and mind of all of us, I pray.
In the name of Jesus, Christ. Amen.
[1]D&C 4:5
[2]Romans 8:24
[3]October 2008 General Conference: "The Infinite Power of Hope" Dieter F. Uchtdorf
[4]1 Peter 1:3
[5]Hebrews 6:11
[6]1 Corinthians 9:10
[7]Moroni 7:43
[8]Hebrews 11:1
[9]Moroni 7:40-42
[10]Alma 32
[11]Ether 12:4
[12]2 Nephi 31:20
[13]“Press Forward Saints” Hymn #81