The Hope God Wants To Give Is The Kind During Calamities And Personal Tragedies



"There may be times when we must make a courageous decision to hope even when everything around us contradicts this hope." The Infinite Power of Hope; President Dieter F. Urchtdorf

The hope we must have is during those times when everything around us looks bleak. Elder Holland gave a powerful talk in conference called An High Priest Of Good Things To Come, where he said that we might not be able to see the silver linings in our clouds but God can. He said the hope we need when our world is crashing down us to the point that the rocks have evil faces. He counseled to not despair or lose hope.

Hope is tied to faith. Faith is not to know how the end will work out. If you knew how it would turn out you would have a sure knowledge and it would not be faith. Elder Simmons gave a great talk about faith called But If Not. What impressed me about that talk is faith is taking action and accepting the possibility of failure. Obviously if you knew before that you would fail, you wouldn't undertake it.

There is obviously a difference between knowing you will fail and having failure as a possibility. Having failure as a possibility is not a reason not to take action. Failure is a mortal reality for nearly everyone. Failing is not the problem. The real problem is not exercising faith to either take action or not getting back up.

The scriptures warn against putting your trust in the arm of flesh and not God. Jesus Christ has descended below all things which includes lower than the lowest you could possibly go. Even if figuratively speaking you feel you are in the gutter and the highest point you can see is the curb, Christ has still been lower. There is no human condition so low that Christ does not know how to fix or mend. Christ delights in mending the most broken life. He does it through faith and the His gospel.

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