>>7662988By Larry Hiller
Church Magazines
I
t seems like
every school has
them—small groups of
friends who are always seen together.
And when you see one, you are pretty sure
the others are close by. That’s how faith, hope,
and charity seem to be in the scriptures.
They are mentioned together so often that
there must be a strong connection. But what is it?
And more importantly, what does it mean for you?
I got so curious about it that I once read the
Book of Mormon through just so I could mark
every place where I found the words faith, hope,
and charity—or those concepts. I was amazed at
how many times they appeared and how often
they were seen together.
But what really hit me was another time when
I was reading Lehi’s famous dream of the iron
rod in 1 Nephi 8. Suddenly I realized that even
though the words faith, hope, and charity are not
mentioned together specifically in the story, Lehi’s
vision contains a great example of what they are
and how they relate to each other.
The Dream
In the first part of his dream, Lehi sees a tree
“whose fruit was desirable to make one happy”
(1 Nephi 8:10). And when he tastes the fruit it fills
his soul with “exceedingly great joy” (verse 12).
He sees a rod of iron that leads to the tree. And
he sees numberless people seeking the tree, many
of them becoming lost in a mist of darkness.
But,
