One of my favorite epiphanies I had on my mission has to do with faith, hope, charity, and love. They were concepts that I could associate other words, thoughts, and feelings with individually without thinking too much about it. I have faith in Jesus Christ. I have hope for an eternal life. I try to be charitable to those around me. I love my family and friends. Easy.
I could also give definitions from memory, such as "faith is not a perfect knowledge, but a hope of things are are not seen but are true."
But what's the tie?
Finally I realized that it isn't by chance these four words--faith, hope, charity, and love--go together. Faith is a HOPE of things which aren't seen but are true. Charity is the pure LOVE of Christ.
My mind often works in little Venn diagrams. I imagine a big circle called "Hope." Inside that circle, there is another circle that fits entirely inside called "Faith." Faith is a specific kind of hope. If you have faith, you necessarily have hope. However, if you have hope, you don't necessarily have faith.
Of course there's another Venn diagram with a big circle titled "Love," which has a smaller circle titled "Charity" inside. By having charity, you are exercising love. However, by exercising love you are not necessarily exercising charity.
If charity is just the pure love of Christ, how did he love differently than others in such a way as to necessitate a separate category?
Here's a little excerpt from my mission study journal on the subject:
"Charity is a gift from God (see Preach My Gospel "Charity & Love"). Normal love is attained by a person and is often accompanied and strengthened by the love or friendship of another. Charity, however, is a gift from God. It is a love for all, those who love in return and who hate in return.
"John 15:17-20 - 'If the world hate you, know that is hated [Christ] before it hated you... The world would love his own (if you were of the world).'
"The world makes friends with those who are friends to worldly things. The instant that a person changes or tries to better themselves and overcome the world, the world will mock that person. However, the pure love of Christ (charity) 'seeketh not her own' (Moroni 7:45) but breaks past and reaches out to all, even those (or maybe especially those) who aren't charitable in return.
"Therefore, to receive this love we must ask for it and work for it. We can't ask to love the Portuguese and then get mad at someone who rejects the message, etc. Moroni exhorts us to pray for this love (Moroni 7:48)."
I just remembered an experience I had on my mission where I said something in a lesson that I had never thought about before, but made perfect sense with this same topic. We were referring to Christ's teachings about loving others.
Matt. 5:43-44 - "Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you."
Christ says you should love your enemies. He doesn't mention, however, anything about not having enemies. The commandment has more to do with loving those that don't return love, and is not about only associating with those that do. If we only needed to show love towards those that love us back (the world would love his own...), we wouldn't learn much about the kind of pure love Christ showed to all people--charity.
I'm so grateful that Heavenly Father operates through the "Charity" circle of the "Love" diagram. Otherwise his love would be conditional upon our own actions, and that is NOT the principle behind forgiveness.
I guess you could say this is why being offended is a problem for the offended person and not the offender. (David A. Bednar's the man!) The offended needs to rid themselves of pride and realize that they need to forgive the offense in order to really be working towards a charitable act of loving those that don't show the love in return. To dwell on an offense is to remain outside the "Charity" circle because the love is only conditional.
Random key words/phrases that run through my mind on this topic:
*Forgiveness
*Charity is not easy
*Christ's example
*The Lord not giving up on us, even with our faults
*Philia
*Amae - our need to receive charity/to be loved and taken care of (as opposed to our need to love others)
*Persian love proverb:
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- Even after all this time
- The sun never says to the earth, "You owe me."
- Look what happens with a Love like that!
- —It lights the whole Sky. (Hafiz)
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