Wednesday, August 19, 2015

The Powerful Connections Between Faith, Hope, and Love

1 Corinthians 13:13 says "three things will last forever--faith, hope, and love--and the greatest of these is love" (NLT translation). Paul's emphasis on faith, hope, and love interests me quite a bit. Recently when thinking over the ideas of faith, hope, and love I realized how interconnected they truly are. Let me explain...

One cannot really love without having hope that their love will be received and one cannot love without having faith that their love will not be abused. Similarly one cannot really have faith without loving the one they have faith in and one cannot have faith without hoping that their faith will not be wasted. Also one cannot have hope without having faith in something and the result of hope is love.

The connections between those three fascinate me beyond end. In fact, if you don't mind I would like to keep going with this.

Faith
When we place our faith in something or someone we usually love that person or that thing to some degree. We trust them (or it). When we are young we place our faith (our trust) in our parents because we love them and they love us. Our pets have faith in us because we show love and affection for them. As a result they generally show care and love back to us. One of the examples that comes to mind of this is Hagrid (from Harry Potter). He has faith in his half-brother Grawp to become civilized because Hagrid loves him. He won't give up on him because he loves him and has faith in him.We know we can put our faith in God because He loves us. That love assures us that we can trust Him. Faith and hope are also connected. When we put our faith in something or someone we hope that our faith will not be wasted. When we sit on a chair we have some amount of faith in it and we hope it will not break. Now for a major step in analogies. When we put our faith in God we have ultimate hope because we have been promised some incredible things from Him like protection, unconditional love, and of course eternity with Him. As Christians we can live with a wonderful sense of hope because of the faith that we have in God.

Hope
Now to turn that around. Similarly one cannot have hope without putting their faith in something. No matter whether someone is an atheist or a Christian everyone has faith in something. Some people have faith because of their faith in themselves. Some people have faith because of their faith in science. Some people have faith because they believe God will redeem them. No matter who you are everyone has faith of some kind. Even in the little things we have hope due to our faith. We have hope that cute boy who sits kitty corner to you in second hour likes you because your friend told you that he did. Your hope comes from your faith in your friend. You have hope that dinner will be good because your nose is telling you it will be good and you trust your sense of smell. Hope and faith are forever linked and it is amazing to think about! Hope and love are also connected. One connection that can be made is this: when we have hope we react in love. When we have hope that God has redeemed us because of His love for us we react with love too. We love our neighbors. We love God. When we are hopeful about our future it allows us to be joyful and therefore more loving towards others.

Love
When we show love to another human being or an animal or even to God we love hoping that our love will be received. We hope the other person will express love back to us. We hope our kids will appreciate the care we show them. We hope that special someone will love us back. Even with pets we hope for their returned affection. Whenever we love we also have this unspoken hope inside of us. At the same time faith also works with love. When we love we have faith that our love will not be abused. When we marry someone we have faith that they we will be faithful to us. When we love God we have faith that He will accept our love. Sometimes people even love wild animals hoping they will love them back. Those people are usually misplacing their faith. However, when we choose to love God we can know our faith will never be misplaced.

I hope you enjoyed reading about the deep rooted connections between faith, hope, and love. Which of these three are you best at? Which one would you like to become better at?

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