Yesterday I wrote about how we should have no fear or trepidation in approaching the Savior to learn from Him because He is meek and lowly of heart. It turns out that meekness and lowliness of heart are not only excellent qualities to have as a teacher or as a student but are also essential to developing faith and hope. “And again, behold I say unto you that he cannot have faith and hope, save he shall be meek, and lowly of heart.” (Moroni 7:43). Generally, faith requires that we act before we fully understand or know whether or not our actions are right or will be successful. One cannot be prideful and act under such circumstances. If we ever find ourselves insisting, as a point of pride, that we must have everything laid out fair and square in exacting detail before we will lift a finger, then we have allowed our pride to kill our faith. The whole point of faith is that when we operate under uncertainty, we don't even know enough to doubt what the Lord can and can't do, and it is in that uncertainty that the power of God can be made manifest. If we know something with absolute certainty, as our pride demands that we must, then we have no reason or capacity to believe anything to the contrary. But if we will humble ourselves before the Lord and do what He asks us to do even if it makes no sense or seems to us to be beneath our dignity, then we can have faith. And it is the same with hope. Meekness is not the absence of power, but rather it is power that is held in check. Is that any different than hope? People can do incredible, even impossible things because they have hope. So many of us reach a point where we have been stripped of almost everything and have no reasons left to carry on except for one. Somehow despite everything that we have gone through, we still have hope that our circumstances could change in the future. That is power that is held in check. That is meekness. The reason that we must choose to have meekness and lowliness of heart before we can have faith and hope is because to some extent faith and hope are outcome dependent. We can choose to continue to hope and have faith in the face of dreams that seem forever out of reach, but that does not change the fact that it is in the realization of those dreams and ambitions that our faith and our hope are fulfilled. But meekness and lowliness of heart don't necessarily have to depend on some particular outcome. Even if meekness and humility are a necessary foundation for faith and hope, we can choose to be meek and humble whether or not faith or hope or anything else factors in. If our faith and hope fails us, we can still choose to be meek and humble. And if our faith and hope are finally rewarded, we can still choose to be meek and humble. Let us allow meekness and lowliness of heart to be their own reward. We will have faith and hope and everything else that is built on those two pillars added, and those can never be taken away as long as we hold dearly our meekness and humility.
