But the Greatest of these is Charity

1 Corinthians 13:13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

Sometimes my mind wanders, and tonight it wandered straight into an epiphany. The triad of faith, hope and charity has always baffled me. They all seem pretty similar when you look real close, so what's the difference, exactly. Specifically, if you wonder what motivates us as human beings. On separate occasions, I've come to the conclusion that all three can be motivating. But if they all push us forward, then why aren't they just one thing?

Somehow tonight this same thought came to me on the way home from seeing Star Trek with family and friends. So I thought about it for a bit; let it rattle around in my head for a few minutes, and then my mind began to wander and I thought about fire. What causes fire? Is it heat? Yes. Is it oxygen? Yes. Is it fuel? Yes.

All three of those elements (heat, oxygen and fuel) are necessary for fire to exist. If you remove one, the others don't make fire. So too with motivation. We need faith, hope and charity to make motivation or action.

So I thought about Jesus Christ, and what exactly he had that the rest of us didn't have. How did he muster up the gumption to offer himself as a sacrifice to save us? (For any non-mormon reading this post, I'm talking about LDS theology. Feel free to tune out or look it up or ask a missionary.) Obviously He had love, but he also needed faith and hope. Now Paul gave us the hint that the greatest is charity (love) and perhaps in this triad, faith and hope play supporting roles to the star of charity, but they were all three necessary to motivate the salvation of mankind.