Doubt Not, But Be Believing

A while back I was reading in Mormon chapter 9 in the Book of Mormon. I was struck by how many times in that chapter we are exhorted to believe in Christ, “doubting nothing” and promised miracles when we do so. It became very clear to me that God places a high value on faith and belief.

I think this stood out to me so much because it is such a contrast to how we tend to think in our current society. I feel like our current society values skepticism over belief. If you’re skeptical of everything, then you’ll never be tricked into believing something that’s not true. You’ll never risk looking like a fool. It’s interesting to me that this is not God’s approach. He encourages us to believe. To exercise faith and hope in the face of uncertainty. That is what makes miracles possible.

More recently I was reading in chapter 63 of the Doctrine and Covenants. Verses 7-12 discuss people who seek signs before they will believe. It seemed very relevant to this discussion of doubt vs belief:

7 And he that seeketh signs shall see signs, but not unto salvation.
8 Verily, I say unto you, there are those among you who seek signs, and there have been such even from the beginning;
9 But, behold, faith cometh not by signs, but signs follow those that believe.
10 Yea, signs come by faith, not by the will of men, nor as they please, but by the will of God.
11 Yea, signs come by faith, unto mighty works, for without faith no man pleaseth God; and with whom God is angry he is not well pleased; wherefore, unto such he showeth no signs, only in wrath unto their condemnation.
12 Wherefore, I, the Lord, am not pleased with those among you who have sought after signs and wonders for faith, and not for the good of men unto my glory.

What I found most interesting in these verses is God’s discussion of what signs are for. He seems most frustrated with those whose focus is on themselves and their need for a sign from God before they will heed His words, rather than on seeking miracles from God to bless others.

I can think of a couple stories that illustrate the concept that “faith cometh not by signs, but signs follow those that believe.”

I met a man during my full-time missionary service in France who experienced the truth that “signs follow those that believe.” His father was gravely injured and in critical condition. This man prayed and told God that he would quit smoking and not seek revenge on those who had injured his father if God would spare his father’s life. His father lived, and this man kept the commitments he had made to God. This experience of acting in faith to secure blessings from God for another resulted in the miracle of his father’s healing and increased this man’s own faith in God, eventually leading him to the waters of baptism to make further covenants with the Lord.

The story of Laman and Lemuel from the Book of Mormon, however, supports the statement that “faith cometh not by signs.” The prophet Lehi’s two eldest sons saw many signs that God is real, even being visited by an angel at one point, but these signs did not create faith in them. They continued to doubt God and His power. Their brother Nephi asks them at one point, “ye also know that an angel hath spoken unto you; wherefore can ye doubt?” And yet, despite all the signs, somehow they manage it. Faith truly cometh not by signs.

You may wonder if I am promoting the idea of “blind faith” here. Let me respond to that by first telling you part of my own story.

Far from promoting “blind faith,” all my youth leaders at church when I was growing up kept emphasizing the importance of getting your own testimony and finding out for yourself that the teachings of the church were true. The point was brought up so often, that I felt a lot of pressure to find out if my church was the true church of God, not because I needed a sign to continue to live its teachings, but because everyone else seemed so convinced that I needed a sign. So I dutifully prayed and asked God to tell me if the church’s teachings were true. If the Book of Mormon was true. I felt a lot of anxiety over my ability to receive a sign from God that would convince all these other people that I had a real testimony of the gospel.

Not surprisingly, my people-pleasing prayers went largely unanswered. One night, after a particularly poignant lesson on the topic, I prayed even more earnestly, sharing with God my anxiety on the topic. This time I received an answer. The answer I received from God through the Spirit was that it was okay for me to just keep living the gospel like I was doing for now. I didn’t need a sign. I could just keep believing and following the commandments. Relief washed through me. I didn’t need to prove anything to anybody. I could just keep living the gospel like I wanted to.

About fifteen years after this experience, I came to a point in my life where I needed to know for myself that God was there and that I could rely on Him. I needed Him to show me the path to the peace, joy and fulfillment He promises the faithful in the scriptures because my own methods for obtaining those things were failing me. This time when I went to Him in prayer, I was not seeking knowledge from Him that other people thought I needed; I was seeking answers to my own questions and concerns. And when I came to Him with my own questions and concerns, He answered me with a steady stream of personal revelation, teaching me truth after truth after truth. The scriptures had indeed become a feast for me, and I learned for myself that I could rely on the Lord to fill me and help me find joy even in the midst of tribulation.

Looking back over my life, do I feel like all those years I spent believing in God and living the gospel without really knowing 100% it was true foolish? A waste? Not at all. I’m actually super grateful that before I had gained enough knowledge and experience to know for myself what types of choices would be of benefit to me, I was taught to live by many values and form many healthy habits that have blessed my life immeasurably. I see those many years of what some might call “blind faith” more a period of maturation of my faith, of laying a foundation of knowledge of God and His words and His ways that I could draw on when it came time for me to finally put my faith to the test.

There are many stories in the scriptures that follow a similar pattern. Nephi was taught about God by his parents growing up. When his father Lehi had a dream in which God told him to take his family and go on a long journey into the wilderness because Jerusalem was going to be destroyed, it was a crisis moment for Nephi. Suddenly he had to know for himself if these things his father had taught him about God were true because the answer was going to have a significant impact on his life. He prayed, and the Lord visited him and softened his heart, letting him know all the things his father had taught him were true (1 Nephi 2:16, Book of Mormon).

Enos had a similar experience when he was out hunting and pondering on all the things his father had taught him and had a strong desire to know that the atonement was real and that he could be forgiven of his sins. He prayed earnestly “all the day long,” until he finally heard a voice saying, “Enos, thy sins are forgiven thee, and thou shalt be blessed,” and his “guilt was swept away” (Enos 1:3-6, Book of Mormon). He then continued to pray on behalf of his people, the Nephites, and then on behalf of his people’s enemies, the Lamanites, and continued to receive further knowledge from the Lord. Like Nephi, he now had his own testimony of the truth of the gospel, separate from his parents’.

There is another point of insight I think we can glean from Enos’s story as well. In verse 1 Enos says, “I, Enos, knowing my father that he was a just man…” We talk about “blind faith,” but I wonder how “blind” faith that is based on the beliefs of one’s parents or on the words of prophets in the scriptures or in our day actually is. Enos took the words of his father seriously because he knew his father to be “a just man.” Nephi also talks about how he was born “of goodly parents” (1 Nephi 1:1). Both these sons could track the goodness of the people who raised them and the strength and goodness that came into their lives through their beliefs.

Even Alma the Younger, who chose to rebel against his father and his father’s gospel teachings, when he finally came to a recognition of the harm the choices he was making were causing himself and others, remembered his father’s testimony in his hour of need and put it to the test, experiencing, like Enos, the miracle of forgiveness, and coming to know His Savior personally through that experience (Alma 36:8-20, Book of Mormon).

Usually the sincere testimony of other good people who have exercised faith and received their own personal evidence of God’s existence, power and mercy is where our own faith begins. This is why God went to such great lengths to have His prophets write down their revelations and experiences, to preserve those writings, and to inspire people to translate those ancient writings into modern languages. The scriptures provide us the knowledge and evidence we need to kindle our own small flame of faith that can then grow larger as we exercise that faith and have our own personal experiences with God. To see His hand in our personal lives though, we first must be willing to believe.

I can personally testify that “signs follow those that believe.” I have experienced God’s hand in my own life on countless occasions. I know He lives and that He knows and loves each of us personally. I invite each of you to exercise enough faith to seek Him and find out for yourselves. He promises throughout the scriptures, “seek me diligently and ye shall find me; ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” (Matt 7:7, Luke 11:9, D&C 88:63). I know God’s promises are true, and that when you sincerely seek Him, you will find Him, for “he hath all power unto the fulfilling of all his words” (1 Nephi 9:6) and “proveth all his words” (2 Nephi 11:3). I bear my personal witness of this, in the name of my Savior, Jesus Christ, amen.

Doing Things the Lord's Way

As the current prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, President Russell M. Nelson, invited us to do, I am currently in the process of reading the Book of Mormon from beginning to end by the end of the year. This week involved a lot of reading in the book of 2 Nephi where the prophet Nephi quotes extensively from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. In chapter 24 of 2 Nephi, Nephi quotes from Isaiah 14 in the Old Testament.

Isaiah’s words about Satan in this chapter really struck me. Lucifer was a son of God who, instead of following God’s plan and doing things God’s way, decided he would rather do things his own way. Isaiah tells us in this chapter how that worked out for Lucifer, and I thought it was a nice parallel to how things go in our lives when we choose to do things our own way rather than submitting our will to the Lord and doing things His way.

Starting in verse 12 of Isaiah 14 (quoted by Nephi in verse 12 of 2 Nephi 24), Isaiah says the following:

12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!...
13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God…
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

So, Satan’s goals were to ascend into heaven, above the height of the clouds, and be like the most High, or possibly even better than Him. Isaiah tells us what happened instead, when Satan decided to take matters into his own hands and do things his own way to try to attain his goals. His ending, according to the prophet Isaiah, will be much different than what he was hoping to accomplish:

15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.
16 They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;
17 That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?
18 All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory, every one in his own house.
19 But thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcase trodden under feet.
20 Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, and slain thy people: the seed of evildoers shall never be renowned.

Basically, Satan, by doing things his way, accomplished the exact opposite of what he hoped to accomplish. Instead of being exalted in the heavens like God, his actions will result in him bringing brought down low into hell, where he will be even lower than those he leads astray in mortality.

The ironic thing is that if Satan had chosen instead to submit his will to the Lord and follow God’s plan instead of trying to do things his own way, he would have achieved exactly what he wanted all along. God’s goal is to exalt all His children and bring them to live with Him again in the heavens, glorified like He is. Following God’s plan would have given Satan everything he dreamed of. But he was convinced his way was better and would make him happier than God’s way.

I went through a period of my life when, while outwardly keeping the commandments and doing what God asked, in my heart I was saying, “God, you just stay over there, and don’t interfere, and I’ll take care of making myself happy. I know what I need to be happy, and I’ll take care of it. You just let me do my thing.” And I went on that way for quite a while, until things started to fall apart, and I realized that I was being more successful at making myself miserable than making myself happy. Humbled, I finally came to the Lord with my whole heart and said, “Heavenly Father, I have no idea what I need to be happy. My way is not working. Will you teach me your way?” And He did teach me. And His way was better, and I found the peace and joy I had been seeking all along but could not find while I was insisting on doing things my way. I fought God’s way for so long, when it was the key to my happiness all along.

I think by telling us Lucifer’s story, Isaiah is trying to teach us this truth: that the Lord’s way is always better than our way, and the quicker we submit to His will and do things His way, the happier we will be and the quicker we will achieve our ultimate goals of happiness and exaltation. No matter how convinced we are that our way will make us happier than God’s way, that’s never the way things turn out. It is only by following the Lord and submitting our will to His that we will find the true happiness we seek. I know this to be true from my own personal experience, and I share these words with you in the name of my Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Lord's Perspective

I recently started studying the Book of Mormon from the beginning again, and I just finished the part where Lehi and Nephi each had their vision of the Tree of Life, and I’ve been pondering on the very different ways that Nephi and Laman and Lemuel responded to the words of their father Lehi, the prophet, about the vision he had. 

When Nephi hears his father's account of his vision, his reaction is to immediately go to the Lord in prayer and ask to receive his own personal witness of the things that his father saw and shared. As a result, he received his own vision of the Tree of Life and an explanation of the meaning of the different things which Lehi saw in his vision and gained his own personal testimony and understanding of the prophet Lehi’s words. 

Laman and Lemuel, on the other hand, upon hearing the words of their father, the prophet, did not go to the Lord in prayer for understanding and their own personal witness of the truth of his words, but instead began “disputing one with another concerning the things [their] father had spoken unto them” (1 Nephi 15:2).

Nephi explains that Lehi “truly spake many great things unto them, which were hard to be understood, save a man should inquire of the Lord…” (1 Nephi 15:3)

This is often true of the words of the Lord and His servants. As Jesus explain to Pilate in John 18:36, “My kingdom is not of this world,” and as He says in the Old Testament in Isaiah 55:8-9, “my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

The Lord sees everything from an eternal perspective, while we see things from a finite, mortal, worldly perspective. It makes sense that in order to understand the words of the Lord, we must turn to Him and get help from the Holy Ghost to see and understand things from His greater eternal perspective.

When Nephi approaches his brothers and asks what they are disputing about, and they explain the words their father spoke that they did not understand, the very first thing Nephi says in response to their questions is, “Have ye inquired of the Lord?” (1 Nephi 15:8)

Laman and Lemuel’s response is, “We have not; for the Lord maketh no such thing known unto us” (1 Nephi 15:9).

Nephi reminds his brothers of the promise of the Lord: “If ye will not harden your hearts, and ask me in faith, believing that ye shall receive, with diligence in keeping my commandments, surely these things shall be made known unto you” (1 Nephi 15:11).

Nephi is teaching his brothers that other weak, fallible mortals are not the people they should be going to for greater understanding of the words of the Lord or His prophets; they should be going to the Lord Himself, the source of all knowledge and truth.

There seems to be a growing trend in society that when our modern day prophet and apostles say something that “is hard to be understood,” like the words that Lehi spoke to his family after receiving revelation from the Lord, people’s first reaction is to jump on Facebook and dispute one with another about the words of the Brethren like Laman and Lemuel rather than turn to the Lord in prayer for personal confirmation and understanding like Nephi.

As Nephi explains to Laman and Lemuel, disputations with other people about the Lord’s or His servants’ words is not an effective way of arriving at truth. You must personally go to the Lord Himself and ask with a sincere heart and real intent, with faith that He will answer you and with a willing heart to act on the answer you receive, whatever it is.

I think one of the biggest things that I have noticed that trip people up in following the Lord and His servants is that they have a bigger testimony of certain social agendas that are important to them than they do of the Lord’s prophet and apostles and their calling as prophets, seers, and revelators. They are convinced that their social agenda is equally as important to the Lord as it is to them and that the Lord has the same opinions as they do about the best way to bring it about. Therefore, if the words or actions of the prophet and apostles do not seem to further the cause of their social agenda(s), they have a difficult time believing that those words or decisions could possibly have come from the Lord, who obviously wants social justice just as much as they do and has that as His top priority in everything He does.

I think there is a false belief here that is the cause of so much of the confusion and dissent among members of Christ’s Church. Is social justice important to God? Of course it is. Would God prefer that all His children treat one another with kindness, respect and love and see each other as equally important in His eyes? Of course He would. Is it good for us to strive for greater social justice in our society? Of course it is. However, even though God loves all of His children equally and believes in social justice, I do not think that social justice is His top priority. 

Think of Christ’s mortal ministry. The Jews were convinced that when the Messiah came His top priority would be the same as theirs: to free them from Roman rule. But that was not what Christ did when He came, which is why so many of the Jews had trouble recognizing Him. Christ’s top priority was not their social agenda of being freed from Roman rule. His top priority was something with much greater eternal significance than any social injustices His people were experiencing in mortality. His top priority was, and still is, the eternal salvation of God’s children, and that can be achieved whether or not God’s children experience social injustices during their time on earth. 

We have power to hurt one another during our time here in mortality, but our power to truly harm one another in any way that is eternally significant is actually incredibly limited. We can enslave each other, discriminate against others for one reason or another, do physical harm to one another, say hurtful words to each other, but we have no power over how others choose to respond to our treatment of them. We cannot stop them from continuing to make good choices about how they treat those around them, from finding peace by forgiving us for our harsh treatment of them, from turning to the Lord for love and healing that transcends any amount of harm we could possibly do to them, from choosing to keep commandments and follow the Lord’s will for them in their lives and gain eternal salvation. No matter what we do, other people and the choices that will affect their eternal salvation are out of our reach. We have the power to make others’ journey through mortality more or less pleasant, to help or hinder them on their path to eternal salvation, but ultimately we cannot stop them from turning to the Lord for the love, healing, knowledge and strength necessary to achieve their eternal goal and reach their divine potential, if that is their true desire.

Indeed, challenging circumstances in mortality are often what lead people to humble themselves and turn to the Lord for help when they have nowhere else to turn. When others are cruel to them or do not meet their needs, they learn to rely on the Lord’s love and strength instead of trying to rely on other imperfect people who will always end up letting them down in one way or another. By humbling ourselves and turning to the Lord in our distress and committing to follow His will for us, we are able to feel a peace that transcends the horror of even the very worst of mortal circumstances.

So, while it is good and right for us to treat others the way Christ would and for society to encourage and give everyone the opportunity to achieve their greatest potential during their mortal life, what is most important to the Lord is that His children achieve their greatest eternal potential, and that can only be accomplished if they know the truth of who God is and of the plan He has prepared for them to gain salvation. It is the primary responsibility of the Lord’s servants to teach these truths that are most important for the eternal progress of God’s children. 

When we do our best to act in accordance with God’s laws and use the power of the atonement in our lives, we can continue to learn and grow and progress on our path to eternal life, irrespective of how others are trying to oppress us or limit our potential in this world. We can find peace and joy and a testimony of our eternal and divine worth as we apply God’s teachings in our lives and grow closer to Him. No one has the power to take that away from us when we have a true understanding of who God is and who we are as His children and of the ordinances and other tools God has put in place to allow us to unlock the powers of heaven in our individual lives. 

Without sufficient knowledge of God, His eternal plan for us, and how to access His love and power in our lives, however, we are much more likely to allow the difficulties of this mortal life to lead us to despair rather than to learning and growth. That’s why God places knowledge of eternal truths and of His plan of salvation for His children as His top priority. Rather than trying to achieve a heaven-like existence for His children in mortality, He uses the inequalities and other challenges of mortal life to refine and teach His children the lessons they must learn to qualify for life with Him in heaven after this mortal existence. This refining process includes a lot of lessons on compassion, patience, and forgiveness towards those who treat us poorly in mortality as they also struggle to learn to become more like Christ, achieve their divine potential, and qualify for heaven. We can't control how other people treat us, but we can control how we respond, and that is the true test of mortality and of the people we are becoming as we learn to rely on the Lord and His great love and wisdom.

Back to the story of Nephi and his brothers in 1 Nephi chapter 15. After first teaching his brothers the importance of turning to the Lord when they have questions, Nephi proceeds to address some of his brothers’ confusion about the meaning of their father’s vision using the knowledge he gained from the Lord during his own vision. 

The question that Nephi gets the most passionate about when teaching his brothers is when they ask what the rod of iron that led to the Tree of Life represented. Nephi explains that the rod of iron in the vision “was the word of God; and whoso would hearken unto the word of God, and would hold fast unto it, they would never perish; neither could the temptations and the fiery darts of the adversary overpower them unto blindness, to lead them away to destruction” (1 Nephi 15:24). After Nephi explains this, he then begins to exhort his brethren “with all the energies of [his] soul, and with all the faculty which [he] possessed, that they would give heed to the word of God and remember to keep his commandments always in all things” (1 Nephi 15:25).

Nephi knows that it is by continually  hearkening to and applying the word of God in our lives that we will be protected from Satan and his temptations and lies that can blind us and lead us to destruction. That is why it is so important to study the word of God in the scriptures, listen to the words given to Christ’s current prophet and apostles to speak, and seek the Lord in prayer to understand these words and how He would like us to apply them in each of our individual lives. If we hold fast to God’s words and keep the commandments He has revealed to His prophets, both anciently and in our day, we will be supported in all the trials and suffering of this mortal life, feel God’s immense love for us and the peace and healing only He can give, and be brought safely home to live with Him again after this life. Eternal life is God’s most important goal for us, and it should be our top priority as well, and hearkening to and seeking to understand the words of God and His eternal plan and perspective are what will help us achieve this primary purpose of mortality. I share these things with you in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.