Hope in Who’s Leading the Way – April 29, 2001
Hope can make a world of difference in our lives.
Shortly after the death of Jesus Christ, two of His followers left Jerusalem for a city called Emmaus. They were trying to get away from their disappointment and doubt. Lost in grief as they walked along, they pondered the circumstances of His death and the rumors of His Resurrection. A man they thought a stranger joined them on this journey. He asked them why they were sad, and they replied that Jesus of Nazareth, mighty in word and deed, was dead. They told of their hopes in Him for restoring Israel, but with His death their hopes were dead. Despair filled their hearts.
The man then spoke to them of what the prophets had promised concerning the Messiah and how it had been fulfilled. While He talked, their hearts began to burn. That’s what happens when we clasp on to hope. It kindles a fire in our hearts, and what was crushing before can then be endured.
Evening drew on, and the travelers invited the man to stay with them. As He blessed and broke bread, they recognized Him as Jesus, and then He vanished from their sight. They immediately arose and headed straight back to Jerusalem. Their hope in Jesus turned them around and sent them back to the place they had been fleeing. Trading grief for joy, hope in Christ had made a world of difference in their lives.1
The darkness that comes into our days doesn’t have the last word. As prophets have taught, when we press forward “with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope,”2 darkness will be transformed into light—for hope in the Lord changes everything.
Hope is found, not in knowing where we’re going, but in seeing who’s leading the way.
Program #3741
1. See Luke 24:13-35.
2. 2 Nephi 31:20.