Finding Answers: From Sister to Sister
With the World Becoming Increasingly Dark, How Can We Have Hope and Joy?
A question many faithful sisters have asked, including me.
I have this bad habit of telling Heavenly Father what I think I can and can’t handle. I remember telling Him once as a young child that I didn’t want to be alive during the last days because I just knew I wouldn’t be able to stand such a wicked, evil time.
As life has gone on, I still find myself claiming that I can’t handle the increasing darkness in the world.
Strangely enough, my patriarchal blessing says I’ll find joy in this life. I’ve often been puzzled at how God expects me to find joy in a world where more people are openly choosing, supporting, and promoting evil.
How is anyone supposed to find hope or lasting joy in such a world?
This apparent disconnect between what my patriarchal blessing tells me is possible and what the world looks like today has led me to study the role of hope and joy in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Hope
As I started to learn about hope, I came across a statement by Elder Steven E. Snow, an emeritus General Authority Seventy: “Our hope in the Atonement [of Jesus Christ] empowers us with eternal perspective. Such perspective allows us to look beyond the here and now on into the promise of the eternities. We don’t have to be trapped in the narrow confines of society’s fickle expectations.”1
I realized that I had experienced this powerful truth firsthand a few years prior. Right before I finished my mission in southern France, terrorists attacked Paris, shaking everyone in the country to the core. When we approached people the week after, they often asked us how we still had faith when God let such terrible things happen. We would share scripture stories with them, and we taught of God’s love and plan of happiness. The people who were able to find hope again were those who listened to our message and strived to have an eternal perspective.
President Russell M. Nelson said: “If there is no hope in Christ, there is no recognition of a divine plan for the redemption of mankind. Without that knowledge, people mistakenly believe that existence today is followed by extinction tomorrow—that happiness and family associations are only ephemeral.”2
If a lack of hope in Christ causes the despair that we see so often in the world, then surely increasing our faith and hope in Christ can help us have more hope in life. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has confirmed this: “Because the Restoration reaffirmed the foundational truth that God does work in this world, we can hope, we should hope, even when facing the most insurmountable odds.”3
Sometimes even knowing that we should place our hope in Christ doesn’t make it any easier to do so, especially with the increasing darkness in the world around us. When I begin to feel discouraged, I like to think of this wise counsel from Kevin J Worthen, president of Brigham Young University:
If we want to strengthen our hope, we must focus more on the Savior, especially when we feel hopeless. One of the simplest but most powerful ways we can do that is to follow His example by serving others. As we do so, our focus will shift from ourselves to others, and we will begin to have desires for their well-being. That hope can then be coupled with the assurance that Christ can help them and that He can do so through us. This addition of faith to our righteous desires can transform our small, nascent hope into an enduring, powerful, more excellent form of hope that can change us—and others.4
Simply by doing the things that bring us closer to Christ, we can find greater hope in our future, no matter what may be happening in the world around us. As we strengthen our relationship with Him, we will learn to look at life through an eternal perspective and recognize that the hardships and trials we face in this life “shall be but a small moment” (Doctrine and Covenants 121:7).
Joy
And what about joy? Aren’t we here so that we might have joy? (See 2 Nephi 2:25.) How can we find joy when things are bleak and we’re doing our best just to have hope of a better future?
Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles once defined joy: “Our gospel perspective helps us to understand that joy is more than a fleeting feeling or emotion; rather, it is a spiritual gift and a state of being and becoming.”5
When I heard him say this, I changed the way I approached my search for joy. Up until that point, I had been searching for a feeling of pure happiness, something that would never leave and that drowned out all feelings of sadness or hurt. But Elder Bednar’s definition opened my eyes to the idea that maybe I wasn’t finding the joy that I was promised because I was searching for the wrong thing.
Instead of searching to feel joyful, I should have been searching to become joyful.
How does one become joyful? I had no idea.
Elder Bednar added, “Joy comes from exercising faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, worthily receiving and faithfully honoring sacred ordinances and covenants, and striving to become deeply converted to the Savior and His purposes.”6
President Nelson also taught:
“The joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives. …
“Joy is a gift for the faithful. It is the gift that comes from intentionally trying to live a righteous life, as taught by Jesus Christ.”7
This sparked a realization in me as I found more truths about the source of joy.
Faith in Jesus Christ? Becoming deeply converted to Him and His purposes? These were things I’d heard all my life. Were they really the key to changing how I felt about living in the world during this time of darkness?
Yes!
As I reflect on the moments in my life when I felt the most hope and joy, I realize they are almost always moments when I was most focused on strengthening my relationship with Christ and striving to become more like Him.
Although I may still struggle with moments of grief or despair, I have hope and faith that as I continue to grow closer to Christ, He will be there to help me with my weaknesses. I have hope that someday I will gain a fullness of joy, and that as I look for the light of the Savior and seek to become joyful despite challenging circumstances, I will find the kind of joy that was promised to me in my patriarchal blessing and that is promised to us all—that “their joy shall be full forever” (see 2 Nephi 9:18).