“The divine blessing of hope”

“To develop toward Christlike character is a process, not an event. There may on day be some crowning event, in which the final endowment of grace completes a process that may take longer than mortal life. But to qualify for such a conclusion requires patience and persistence more than it requires flawlessness. It is, indeed, our own groping and reaching in the struggle for growth that qualifies us for divine help. Reid Nibley described this process in these lines:

A distant star

But not too far

To lure us out into the firmament

And tho we ne’er may reach it,

We have tried.

And in the trying

Have learned, perchance,

To make an orbit of our own.

“Our effort to reach for the distant star of the idea, of what ought to be, is much like the massive effort required to allow a rocket ship to break through the forceful pull of gravity. But our own orbit awaits us beyond the edge of gravity.

“The divine blessing of hope gives us much-needed perspective and strengthens our will to keep moving, against the odds, against the backward pull. It is the principle by which our Father guides us—line upon line, precept upon precept…

“And as we expand the reach of our circle of reality, the strangest thing happens: The circle of the ideal recedes to the horizon, creating both new aspirations and a new gap. We are like a toddler just learning to walk. A parent kneels a few steps away and coaxes with outstretched hands: ‘You can do it; come to Mommy!’ Just as the toddler is about to arrive, the parent might move back a step or two, stretching the todler’s reach beyond his grasp.

“Our Father in Heaven also waits and coaxes and literally gives us hope—and something about the perspective of hope maintains in our vision an optimal distance between the ideal and the real.”

-The Broken Heart: Applying the Atonement to Life’s Experiences by Bruce C. Hafen