The form of a determination

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Sunday Morning Session of the October 1998 Conference.

This talk of Elder Maxwell's is so familiar, I was surprised we hadn't already covered it in this General Conference Odyssey! Maybe I've just read lots of quotes from it. But even though I had heard lots of it before, it was still my favorite talk from this session. I think hope is just a subject that speaks to my soul!

Elder Maxwell always seems so relevant to right now. This could easily have been said in our most recent General Conference:

Because proximate hopes are so vulnerable to irony and the unexpected, there is an increasing and profound sense of existential despair in the world. A grumpy cynicism now pervades politics. Many feel burdened by society’s other accumulating anxieties.

Even those who are spiritually secure themselves can sense the chill in the air. …There is so much unsettlement and divisiveness. No wonder the subsequent loss of hope almost inevitably sends selfishness surging as many, resignedly, turn to pleasing themselves.

I thought it was interesting to connect a loss of hope with selfishness. I wouldn't have made the connection, but it's true that when you lose hope, you lose purpose or a reason to keep working. Conversely, then, it makes sense that having hope can energize us and give us purpose. That seems like a good reason to keep fighting for hope even when circumstances lean us toward discouragement. And that's just what Elder Maxwell says too, one of my favorite of his sayings:

Real hope keeps us “anxiously engaged” in good causes even when these appear to be losing causes on the mortal scoreboard. Likewise, real hope is much more than wishful musing.…Hope is realistic anticipation which takes the form of a determination—not only to survive adversity but, moreover, to “endure … well” to the end.

I love the picture at the top of this post because of the expressions on those boys' faces as they run uphill. My cross-country coach used to say "Attack the hills!" And you really have to. They're so hard. But you can't cower away; you can't lose heart. The hills are where you have to show what you're made of. I knew that instinctively, even as a young runner. And maybe that's why I so much like this idea of being hopefully determined: determined to trust God, determined to see His hand, determined to keep reaching out to others, determined not to ever give up on my family. Even when the whole world is in chaos, I can keep doing those things! Especially in my own little sphere!

 In the same vein, Elder Maxwell uses the "make our own gardens grow" metaphor I like so much:

We may not be able to fix the whole world, but we can strive to fix what may be amiss in our own families. Tolkien reminds us: “It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.”

Therefore, brothers and sisters, in our own little family plots, we can bequeath to the succeeding generations “clean earth to till”! Thus not only does charity begin at home, but so does hope!

If we look for specific things we can do, the Holy Ghost will direct us, showing unto us “all things” which we should do, for this is one of His inspiring roles. Our opportunities for helping others who have lost hope may be no further away than in our own extended families, a discouraged neighbor next door, or someone just around the corner. …

Therefore, being blessed with hope ourselves, let us, as disciples, rather than being contracted, reach out, including to those who, for whatever reason, have “moved away from the hope of the gospel” (Col. 1:23).

Hope doesn't always come easily to me—my mind is really good at spinning into fears and worst-case scenarios, especially for those I love. It takes a conscious effort to cultivate it. But Elder Maxwell makes a convincing case that the effort is worthwhile. Nurturing hope in ourselves and others can lead to a host of other blessings along the way!

Other posts in this series:

Like a dry sponge— by Rozy