Choosing faith can be difficult, especially in the face of personal doubts and frustrations, but choosing to keep trying will bring us closer to our Savior.
Asking questions is good. Asking questions can help strengthen our faith. But there are a lot of thorny questions about Church doctrine, history, or positions on sensitive issues. There are also personal aches and desires that sometimes don’t have answers—or don’t have answers that bring us peace.
Image by Aaron Burden
In her talk “Returning to Faith,” Sister Rosemary M. Wixom shares a story she heard from a young mother in a Relief Society lesson. The woman shared, “My testimony had become like a pile of ashes. It had all burned down. All that remained was Jesus Christ.… But He does not leave you when you have questions.” Despite serious challenges to her faith, this woman wanted to believe, and she decided to lean on her Savior while she worked on rebuilding her faith.
Sister Wixom quotes the counsel that Archbishop Périer gave to Mother Teresa when she was experiencing similar doubts: “‘Guided by faith, by prayer, and by reason with a right intention, you have enough.’” When we doubt, our desire to believe can be enough to get us through.
“Believe in God; believe that he is,…believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend” (Mosiah 4:9). Sometimes we must simply choose faith. And we choose faith when we turn to God, when we pray, when we keep trying even though it’s hard to believe.
Focusing our faith on the Lord can help us withstand the discomfort of our uncertainties. When we feel like there is nothing else for us to pin our faith to, we can choose faith by clinging to the assurances of God.
Read more about choosing faith by reading Rosemary M. Wixom’s full article “Returning to Faith.”
Source: ChurchofJesusChrist.org
FEATURE IMAGE BY TIMA MIROSHNICHENKO
—Abbi Clark, Latter-day Saint Insights
Find more insights
Read more about seeking answers to tough questions by reading Sister Sheri Dew’s talk “Will You Engage in the Wrestle?”
Learn more about facing doubts and strengthening your faith by reading Jon Blackman’s article “Doubting my Doubts.”