Hope is what leads us to faith. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1 JST). So, faith is an assurance which can be granted to us based upon our hope. And when we obtain faith, we obtain hope. One of the best examples of this is found in Alma 58.
The Nephites are up against an innumerable host of enemies and verse 9 states how the Nephites felt, “Therefore we were grieved and also filled with fear…” In the following verse, it states they prayed that God would deliver them from their enemies (their hope). Then in verse 11, “The Lord our God did visit us with assurances that he would deliver us…he did speak peace to our souls, and did grant unto us great faith, and did cause us that we should hope for our adeliverance in him.” As the scriptures state, they hoped for deliverance, received an assurance, and they were blessed with faith. Thus their assurance from God was “the evidence of things not seen” which would shortly come to pass. The assurance from God led them to have hope in God.
Other examples of faith are Moses, Enoch, and Abraham. Moses parted the Red Sea in order for the children of Israel to pass over on dry land. He had the faith to part the waters because God gave him a prior assurance, “And thou shalt be made stronger than many waters; for they shall obey they command as if thou wert God” (Moses 1:25). Enoch was promised, “The mountains shall flee before you, and the rivers shall turn from their course” (Moses 6:34). Then, when Enoch spoke, the mountains moved and the rivers turned their course (Moses 7:13). That brings up an interesting point in having faith to move mountains. If you have it, you don’t grab a shovel and start digging—you simply speak and it happens.
Abraham showed his faith when taking his son to be sacrificed. First because Abraham had been amongst a people that gave human sacrifice, and he was saved from being a human sacrifice (Abr. 1:7-15). Second, he had been promised a large posterity (Gen. 15:5). Although Isaac was to be the sacrifice, Abraham did have another son, Ishmael who was to also have a large posterity (Gen. 16:10-11, 17:20), but the covenant was to be made with Isaac (Gen. 17:19, 21). So Abraham has been promised specific blessings which would come to him through Isaac, yet he is told offer his son as a sacrifice. Abraham showed his faith by offering up his son and knew “that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead…” (Heb. 11:19 – but read 17-19). Fortunately it never had to come to that.
Faith, then, is a gift from God (Moroni 10: 11). Pray for it.
