the greatest of these . . .

“Faith, hope, and love”–these are perhaps the chief characteristics of genuine spirituality. Faith involves looking to another, resting in the one who can rescue, protect, and guide. Hope is an expectation of better things, an attitude of anticipation that the good will indeed arrive.

Of course faith from a Christian perspective centers in Jesus, the promised Messiah. In this sense faith engenders and provides the basis for hope. Trusting in God’s provisions and promises yields hope. Hope, from a Christian vantage point, is a realistic optimism, a confidence of sorts that life does (and will) ultimately make sense. Indeed, it can be argued that the human longing for fulfillment and purpose, the hope embedded in the soul of people, incites faith, for it sets us on a course or a journey to locate the cause of this hope. Faith and hope therefore intersect and compliment each other and thus play an integral role in spirituality.

Notice, however, that there is one more element that is even more powerful than the others. That element is love. The point is not that love can get along without faith and hope. Love, in fact, locates its source in the object of faith, which–according to Christian tradition–is Jesus. Likewise, love looks with hope to the day when it is unhindered by corruption and error and unhampered by wrong impulses. Thus, faith and hope work in conjunction with love in the expression of spirituality.

Still, there is some sense, at least, in which love is greater than the others. What good would hope in the future be if didn’t produce compassion and grace in the here-and-now? Likewise, how useful would faith be if it didn’t actually motivate practical expressions of love?

Hope needs love if it is to go beyond mere sentimentality, if it is to prove its own validity. And faith requires more than theoretical belief in various doctrines (true though they might be); it shows itself to be authentic by radiating in and through the life of those who believe. Faith, in other words, works through love.

How can we know if faith and hope are genuine, if any of them are to be accepted, if there really is anything to this whole spiritual enterprise? Faith–which is integral–is an ongoing attitude of trust and dependence in God, while hope is a looking forward to the completion of faith. But current (ongoing) faith and the future (undeterred) hope both require something else. Faith and hope grow in the soil of genuine love.

Any truly sound spirituality requires an interplay between faith, hope, and love. They flow in and out of one another, each sustaining and energizing the others. Make no mistake about it, we require faith, hope, and love . . . all three. But one penetrates the others in a special way, a way that can be easily observed, felt, and demonstrated. Love incites faith and demands hope. Faith, hope, and love–these are the basic qualities of a Christian spirituality . . . but the greatest of these is love.