Faith

I’ve been thinking today about faith.  In Sunday School earlier this year we had a lesson on the children of Israel entering into the promised land.  The Lord repeated the miracle of parting the waters as they crossed the river Jordon.  Not only was this a sign that God was with Joshua who had now taken over the leadership of the camp but it generated the faith Israel needed to successfully enter into the Promised Land. 

The priests who carried the Arc of the Covenant  were commanded to go first.  They were to walk into the water with the Arc before the water parted.   Elder Packer talks about this concept in the following quote:

"Shortly after I was called as a General Authority, I went to Elder Harold B. Lee for counsel. He listened very carefully to my problem and suggested that I see President David O. McKay. President McKay counseled me as to the direction I should go. I was very willing to be obedient but saw no way possible for me to do as he counseled me to do. "I returned to Elder Lee and told him that I saw no way to move in the direction I was counseled to go. He said, 'The trouble with you is you want to see the end from the beginning.' I replied that I would like to see at least a step or two ahead. Then came the lesson of a lifetime: 'You must learn to walk to the edge of the light, and then a few steps into the darkness; then the light will appear and show the way before you'" ("The Edge of the Light," BYU Today, Mar. 1991, 22-23).

Why must we take the step into the unknown?  It is because that act itself begins to create the faith to bring about whatever it is we are seeking to accomplish in our lives.  There is no active faith present before we take that first step and moving forward is part of what creates the faith to prevail.  I think this is true, very true, in relationship to priesthood blessings.  We activate the faith necessary to realize the blessing by giving the blessing, by pronouncing the words and then by acting upon that blessing while continuing to petition the Lord for its fulfillment. .  The same principle applies to our other requests in prayer.  Our acting in faith parts the waters before us. 

Often we misunderstand the process and think like Oliver Cowdery that all we have to do is ask.  Rather, we must ask in faith which includes action and moving towards whatever it is we need to create before us. 

This step between wanting to have our blessings handed to us just because we have asked without moving forward on our part and the miracles that occur from truly acting in faith is the gap we need to bridge.  It seems impossibly hard to us and that is because we think we have to do it ourselves.  Actually it is the Lord that provides the power but we access that power through active faith.  Active faith is spiritual work which is why I think we often shy away from it.  We tend to rest in a state of spiritual inertia.   We are held back by choosing to remain in unbelief instead of acting in belief.  We don’t plant the seed as outlined in Alma 32-34.  We hope the Lord will arrive with the silver platter full of answers to our prayers but we are not firm in our resolve to lay our faith offering before the Lord and know that He will respond to that in the best way for our eternal development.  

Once we have acted in faith the Savior's atonement reveals itself in our lives and the fruits of that atonement come forth.  That fruit is indeed joyous to the soul as we see the Lord's hand play out in undeniable ways. May we learn to act in faith.