Faith

This past Sunday, as with every Sunday, I battled internally with myself while deciding if I should attend the second hour of church. I have always felt that the most crucial part of church is sacrament, but this past Sunday I was having a hard time convincing myself not to attend the second hour. I finally gave up the fight and went to Gospel Doctrine with Will and my dad. While we were there the topic of losing children came up with the question, 'how can you have faith when you don't get the answer you wanted?' I felt completely inadequate to provide any input as I, myself, have never lost a child. But as the conversation continued, I felt the Spirit bear testimony to me of a very important truth, and as he did, a phrase as clear as day entered my mind, "We have to endure to the end, not 'pray for what we want and get the answers we want' to the end."

Having faith, real faith, is not saying, "I know I will get what I want when I pray to the Father." Having faith, real faith is saying, "In spite of what happens in the end, I will turn to the Lord first, and trust in Him." Trusting in someone who gives us everything we want is not trusting at all; that's a conditional agreement. We do not put conditions on our Heavenly Father. He allows us the opportunity to exercise our free agency in order to receive blessings if we choose wisely. We do not get to say, "I went to church and paid my tithing, remove these trials." 

My dad made a comment that impressed me so much, I tried to commit it to memory, he said, "The problem is we love the Lord conditionally, when he loves us unconditionally." We love the Lord when life is going great, but we're so quick to murmur and curse Him when we feel he hasn't blessed us the way we think we deserve.. He, on the other hand, deals with our garbage attitudes every single day. He gives us clear guidelines for how to live our lives and we disobey them constantly.

Imperfect people are all God has ever had to work with. That must be terribly frustrating to Him, but He deals with it. 

("Lord, I Believe"-Jeffrey R. Holland)

 And despite my constant sinning, I have yet to be struck down by lightning. He could, I definitely deserve it, but He doesn't. 

I went to the temple this morning before work, and as I sat afterwards reflecting how I felt, I realized a pattern. Whenever I try to go to the temple I have the hardest time waking up. Even if I get 7 hours of sleep the night before, I feel like it's impossible to get out of bed. There's also always something else I have to do that seems more important on those days. I'm almost always grumbling the entire time from the parking lot to the doors, but each and every time, without fail, I feel a peace and happiness once I arrive. I also have never, ever, not once regretted going to the temple. I think this pattern is reflective of how we should trust in the Lord, in faith. Things will be difficult. There will seem like there are more important things to do. But when we trust in the Lord, He will come through, every time. And we will never regret putting our trust in that Perfect Being. 

I am not perfect in my faith, the Lord knows that. But I'm grateful for the small glimpses of knowledge he lends me to remind me of where I need to be.