BOOK OF MORMON: DAY 108: FAITH TO MOVE YOUR MOUNTAINS

Today’s Reading:  Jarom 1

11 Wherefore, the prophets, and the priests, and the teachers, did labor diligently, exhorting with all long-suffering the people to diligence; teaching the law of Moses, and the intent for which it was given; persuading them to look forward unto the Messiah, and believe in him to come as though he already was. And after this manner did they teach them.

As I have prayed to know what to share regarding today’s reading, I’ve felt impressed to write about spiritual plateaus–those places that we come to when we feel like no matter what we’re doing, our current faith is not enough to move the mountains in our lives.

Just like the Nephites, we are taught in our day to look forward to Christ’s coming, to believe that he will come again, to believe IN Christ…but do we BELIEVE Christ?  Do we know and believe his promises?  Do we believe that he can heal us in this life?  Do we believe that the wrongs will be made right?  Do we believe that he knows how to save each of us?  If not, what gets in the way?

A trip to to the temple answered that question for me a few years ago.  As I participated in an endowment session, I noticed with fresh eyes the tactics that Satan used with the first man and woman to get them to begin doubting the Savior’s promises.  He planted feelings of inadequacy and lack of worthiness within them.

He told them to run and hide from the very people that loved them and would help them.  He introduced them to the idea of shame,  convincing them that as they were in that moment, they were not enough and therefore unworthy.

How often do we find ourselves feeling those same illusions created by the adversary?  He knows that if he can get us to feel shame, and feel like we are not enough, that we will not answer the door when the Savior knocks, that we will run and hide from those extended loving hands.  We will resist and not accept the Savior’s love though we desperately seek it.

The following quote is one of the most powerful descriptions of the kind of faith that we need in our day in order to not only believe in Christ, but to BELIEVE Christ.  Boyd K. Packer stated:

Faith, to be faith, must go into the unknown. Faith, to be faith, must walk to the edge of the light, and then a few steps into the darkness. If everything has to be known, if everything has to be explained, if everything has to be certified, then there is no need for faith. Indeed, there is no room for it.

There are two kinds of faith. One of them functions ordinarily in the life of every soul. It is the kind of faith born by experience; it gives us certainty that a new day will dawn, that spring will come, that growth will take place. It is the kind of faith that relates us with confidence to that which is scheduled to happen.

There is another kind of faith, rare indeed. This is the kind of faith that causes things to happen. It is the kind of faith that is worthy and prepared and unyielding, and it calls forth things that otherwise would not be. It is the kind of faith that moves people. It is the kind of faith that sometimes moves things. … It comes by gradual growth. It is a marvelous, even a transcendent, power, a power as real and as invisible as electricity. Directed and channeled, it has great effect.

When will we learn that in spiritual things it works the other way about—that believing is seeing? Spiritual belief precedes spiritual knowledge.

The Book of Mormon is filled with examples of people who have seen Christ.  These good, yet imperfect people received a witness that he is who he says he is and can do what he says he can do.  Yet, do we believe that we are worthy of this same gift?  He promises to come to us if we let him in, no matter our perception of ourselves.  When we start to believe him, he can provide us the power, by faith, to move past the plateaus and help each of us to move our own personal mountains.

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