When faced with moments of spiritual silence, how do we maintain our faith and hope?
Uncertainty is a universal constant that stems from unknown future variables, such as schooling, careers, spouses, finances, health, or other life plans.
As Erin Kramer Holmes says in her BYU devotional, “Waiting Upon the Lord: The Antidote to Uncertainty,” “No one will be immune from uncertainty or from the struggle, questioning, heartache, and pain that may accompany it.”
So, what can we do when we’re faced with such guaranteed ambiguity?
According to Holmes, “As we wait upon the Lord, we can choose faith and hope.” Holmes explains that trials such as fear and spiritual isolation often accompany uncertainty and that relying on our past experiences with faith can enable us to start focusing on our future with hope.
“This optimism in Christ’s divinity and this belief that we will continue to be blessed are the very essence of hope and faith,” says Holmes.
Choosing to embrace faith and hope empowers us to act on God’s will, which, as Holmes describes, “includes embracing uncertainty and enduring beyond what [we] thought [we] could endure.”
I know there have been times in my own life when I felt pushed beyond my limits. I have overcome such times of ambiguity and isolation only by focusing on my past spiritual experiences, whether they were great or small. Only then could I begin to have hope for my future despite whatever uncertainty I faced.
Just as my change in focus has helped me to cope with an ever-changing and uncertain landscape, everyone can receive power from God to manage their own uncertainties by choosing to focus on having faith in Christ and hope in the future.
Learn more about how we can choose faith and hope in uncertain circumstances by reading Erin Kramer Holmes’s full devotional “Waiting Upon the Lord: The Antidote to Uncertainty.”
—Jennifer Fletcher, Latter-day Saint Insights
Source: BYU Speeches
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Find more insights
To learn more about understanding God’s plan in confusing times, read Rebecca Flinders’s article “Wading Through the Waves of Uncertainty.”
Take a look at Elder Dallin H. Oaks’s devotional “Timing” to discover how to trust God’s will and timetable.