Faith & Works

Lately I have had to make a lot of decisions, and while I know that everything will work out in the end, it can be difficult to trust that feeling and to not stress about the future. Therefore, I decided to study faith this week.

In Alma 32:27, it reads:

"But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words."

Today I am going to 1) explain what this verse means to me, 2) explain the principle in this passage, and 3) apply it to our own lives.

From the very beginning of this verse, I feel an urge to act and to change. I feel that personally this verse really stands out to me because it requires action on my part, and of course I love it because the language is so beautiful as well. I want to be a researcher (I am a research assistant right now and I love it!) and so the call to experiment also stands out. There can be no correlation, let alone causation, determined if we do nothing to test our hypothesis. If we have a desire to know the truth, we follow the scientific process of experimentation and let the results speak for themselves.

The principle here is simple, but often overlooked. In a world riddled with "pics or it didn't happen," faith is a difficult concept for many to grasp. Most will not try a diet until they see before & after pics of a valued customer who used the same program, or they will not enroll in test-prep classes without seeing the ratings of the instructor online. This same critical methodology is used in spiritual matters as well, which is an issue for this doctrine. We need to awake, arouse, experiment, have faith, and give this process enough time to see the results. Faith without works is dead.

In more understandable terms, the way that we can apply this is to look in our lives for what principle of the gospel or commandment we struggle most with. Do you have a hard time keeping the Sabbath day holy? Do you find it easy to tell white lies? Do you only put in half of the effort you know you are capable of when it comes to your calling or home teaching? Select an area to improve in, then foster that desire to grow. Pray for the desire to be better, pray for godly sorrow, and then experiment. Create a schedule so that you have preplanned appropriate Sunday activities. Practice pausing for two seconds before every response so that you can ensure that what you are about to say next is honest. Each week map out what you can do to better prepare for the lesson you need to teach, or write the name of the person you visit teach on your arm so that you think to text them throughout the week. Results may not be immediate, but "give place" for these good things in your life and in your heart.