Randall Probst

Enduring in Faith and Hope

When I think of enduring in faith and hope, I am drawn to the prophet Mormon and his son Moroni. To ponder on the struggles they faced as they saw the destruction of their family and friends and the church and kingdom of God is beyond my comprehension. And then for Moroni to be left alone to wander in the wilderness for some 30 years with only his faith and hope in Christ is a most powerful and instructive lesson in enduring in faith and hope. It is also one of the places we are taught that important principle. Mormon taught his son when he ordained him a priest, that cleansing and healing through the atonement comes “by the endurance of faith on his name to the end.” (Moroni 3:3). Then he goes on to teach him that it is not just surviving and/or completing his task, it is much more as evidenced as he writes him and prays for him: “My beloved son, Moroni, I rejoice exceedingly that your Lord Jesus Christ hath been mindful of you, … I am mindful of you always in my prayers, continually praying unto God the Father in the name of his Holy Child, Jesus, that he, through His infinite goodness and grace, will keep you through the endurance of faith on his name to the end.” (Moroni 8:2-3).

Mormon and Moroni also tie faith and hope together and reminds us that we can have a “a sufficient hope by which ye can enter into the rest of the Lord” (Moroni 7:3). As hope is “the confident expectation of and longing for the promised blessings”, it can come only in and through the Savior.

It is with faith and hope that we can, as Paul reminds, “run with patience the race (a marathon not a sprint) that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.” (Hebrews 12:1-2) Elder Maxwell adds, “Faith in the plan of salvation with its developmental dimensions makes allowance for the fact that so many undesirable things occur "in process of time." Exercising one's faith "in process of time" involves the steady isometrics of pitting the old self against the new self. No wonder patience is also required in this, the most grinding and exhausting form of calisthenics. —Lord, Increase Our Faith, p. 35.

As adversity and overwhelming challenges come, our faith and hope is tested. We may even cry out as did the prophet Joseph in Liberty jail, “O God, where art thou? And where is the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place?” (D&C 121:1) The Savior well understands that cry from His experience in the garden. It causes us to look deep into our faith and hope and exercise that next “particle of faith” to take another step. And unlike the Savior’s cry, we are not left to do it on our own. He promised, “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.“ (John 16:33) , and “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” (John 14:18).
To me, one of the important parts of enduring is not getting stuck in one place or getting into reoccurring ruts that pull us off the path along the way. It is certainly important to stop and hurt, and feel, and cry, and grieve. It is all a part of deep love. Then because of our hope (the confident expectation of and longing for the promised blessings), we exercise our faith (an action) by doing something (however small) to remember the good and move closer to those promised blessings because it is at those vulnerable moments that the adversary tries to move in and replace faith and hope with doubt and despair. The Savior’s experience is a powerful example. The adversary tries to fill our mind with “if” statements – “what if”, “if only”, or “if I had”. Going there with him spirals us away from faith and hope. Conversely, the Savior’s response (God said, therefore… ) is a pattern of faith and hope in the promises of His Father and helps Him move toward them. Restating the truths and promises is a form of testimony and allows the Spirit to confirm their truth which strengthens our faith and as Elder Maxwell says enlarges our hope. “In the geometry of restored theology, hope has a greater circumference than faith. If faith increases, the perimeter of hope stretches correspondingly.” —Ensign, November 1994, p. 35.

I believe that one of the reasons for enduring in faith and hope is to keep us from getting stuck. Taking each next small step of faith opens new doors and gateways in our lives that we could easily miss if we are stuck in one place. In fact, the very difficult experiences prepare us to be able to understand and appreciate opportunities that open in no other way. However, that same thing can be said of even wonderfully positive experiences. We can likewise get stuck there and not be pushed to exercise hope and faith for greater and greater blessings and opportunities. Elder Maxwell taught us, “Endurance is more than pacing up and down within the cell of our circumstance; it is not only acceptance of the things allotted to us, but to “act for ourselves” by magnifying what is allotted to us. (Alma 29:3,6.) (Ensign, May 1990, p.33)

Enduring in faith and hope keeps us more in balance and moving toward all that God has in mind for us. President Nelson reminds us, “Your Heavenly Father has known you for a very long time. You, as His son or daughter, were chosen by Him to come to earth at this precise time, … You were chosen not for your bodily characteristics but for your spiritual attributes, such as bravery, courage, integrity of heart, a thirst for truth, a hunger for wisdom, and a desire to serve others. You developed some of these attributes premortally. Others you can develop here on earth as you persistently seek them.” Russell M. Nelson, “Decisions for Eternity,” Ensign, Nov. 2013; lds.org. Enduring is not suffering through, it is continuing to find purpose and meaning in the things that needed to be experienced. It moves us from a place of struggling to get to the end to a place of refining and perfecting.

Changing our mindset from one of looking to the end to one of looking for the blessings of daily experience is also important especially since we neither know nor determine what the end is or means. I like Elder Maxwell’s perspective, “With gospel perspective, we can know that when we endure to the very end, we are actually enduring to the very beginning. Thus, rather than viewing this virtue as delivering us expiring in exhaustion to a finish line, we are brought intact and victorious to a starting line!” —Wherefore, Ye Must Press Forward, p. 112. Wherever we end one experience or time period is where we begin the next. As we continue to take a step in faith we move upward.

A couple of concluding thoughts from Elder Maxwell:
“If everything in one's immediate context were constantly clear, God's plan would not work. Hard choices as well as passing through periodic mists of darkness are needed in order to maintain life's basic reality-that we are to overcome by faith.” —Lord, Increase Our Faith, p. 110.
“Thus the tests given to us here are given not because God is in doubt as to the outcome, but because we need to grow in order to be able to serve with full effectiveness in the eternity to come” (Neal A. Maxwell, All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience).

Faith and hope, when tied to the pure love of Christ opens the door to never-ending and never-failing love. That love has the capacity to multiply forever without diminishing return. Being confident in hope and exercising faith each day will allow us (whenever the Lord calls the race) to say as did Paul, “I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7).

It all circles me back to Moroni who I think understood faith, hope, and charity as well as anyone.
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. … For it is by faith that miracles are wrought; and it is by faith that angels appear and minister unto men;… I judge that ye have faith in Christ because of your meekness; … and if a man be meek and lowly in heart, and confesses by the power of the Holy Ghost that Jesus is the Christ, he must needs have charity;… And charity suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, … and rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things…. and it endureth forever;” (Moroni 7:37-47).