Faith

This is from an email Natalie sent a couple of weeks ago.

"This week I've been thinking a lot about faith and what it really means to have faith. I think it's a lot deeper and a lot harder than we really think.  Faith is believing something, having a hope for something, without seeing it.  But it is also a principle of power and action.  I realized this week that my faith has a LOT of room for improvement. I just want to have such strong faith and such a strong belief/knowledge of this gospel, that I can truly testify to people that I really know this is true.  That I really know this can change their lives.

 As I have been thinking about faith lately, I have found that a way for me to grow in these areas is to ask questions. Just think about how much faith it takes to ask a question in a prayer. That means you have faith that there's someone there listening to your prayers, that you have faith that the God you believe is listening to your prayers, and actually cares about you and your question. This means you have faith that somehow and someway that God will find a way to guide you and answer your questions. Let me just tell you, answers are there. It’s scary and hard, but answers are there.

As I have been reading and studying the scriptures, truly with a prayer and question in my heart, having faith that I will receive, I have received So much. Personal study time is my favorite part of the day.  It's the time of day when God talks to me and when God teaches me.  I absolutely cherish that time. I've been asking a lot of questions lately, (I wouldn't be surprised if God is starting to get annoyed with how many :), but they are being answered.  Not all of them have been, but I have faith that they will.

Sister Sheri Dew was our speaker in Relief Society, something she said that sunk in was that we need to be sure to ask questions in the right environment. Don't ask questions with the idea that your testimony is wrong and you won't get answers, but ask questions in an environment of faith - believing that you will get answers and that you will just be able to understand more and understand better.

 Hna. Wright told me this week something that has really hit both of us. She said something along the lines, "If we feel we are not capable of doing this, that means we aren't trusting in God. Our confidence needs to be in God and His capabilities, and not our own."'

Lots of times, I feel weak. I don't feel like I'm enough to do this job at hand. But as I continue growing my faith, and as I learn how to rely on God and truly trust in Him, its okay if I am weak. Its okay because I don't have to rely on my own capabilities and my own knowledge. If I try my best, God has promised that He will make up the rest. I am learning to have faith in that promise."