Hope

2 Nephi 31:20 says:

"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."

 There are some scriptures that are more difficult to write about.  This is one of them.  It is so perfect, so eloquent that it feels odd that I would attempt to expound upon its teachings with my own words.  However, that does not stop me from trying :)

I just wanted to record a few thoughts I had upon reading this scripture.  First of all, whenever I read the phrase "endure to the end" I think of a General Conference talk I once heard that said we should think of it more as "progressing to the end."  I can't find the talk or remember, with surety, who gave it, but I remember the message was one that spoke to my heart.  I thought of it like this--we are not supposed to merely endure, hanging on by our fingertips to our testimony as we ride through the ups and downs of life, but we are supposed to improve and build upon our understanding of the gospel as we are guided around and through the deep pitfalls and majestic summits we encounter during our time on earth.  As Elder Bednar would say--We are to act and not simply be acted upon.

The other thought I had when I read this wonderful scripture was how my understanding of hope has changed since I was young.  When I was a teenager, I distinctly remember trying to have hope.  I tried to will hope into my being much like I might try to strong arm a locked door to open, with about as much success too.  "Have some hope, Ambra."  I would tell myself whenever despair crept into my life.  It didn't really work and now I understand why.  I was trying to hope and then perfect myself.  I was reading the scriptures and going to church and trying very hard not to do anything wrong because to me when the scriptures said "repent" it sounded an awful lot like a chastising that I didn't want to be worthy of.  I didn't understand the Atonement.  I didn't understand that precious gift that Christ gave to us.  I didn't understand that the scriptures are continually urging repentance because everyone, prophets and apostles included, needs repentance because we can't perfect ourselves.  We must rely on Jesus Christ for our perfection.  We must come to trust him and love him and believe on his words if we want to live with Heavenly Father again.  It is when we do this that hope springs up in our souls like a wildflower, natural and lovely to behold.  It is through that hope that we come to love Christ more, trust him more.  It is a wonderful cycle that includes faith and charity in it.  I used to always marvel that a little thing like hope was included by Paul as one of the big three, as in "faith, hope, and charity."  Now, I see its worth, and feel it is a most grand concept.