Today I read Ether 12, a very famous chapter as any who took seminary well knows. This chapter is mostly about having faith and about why we have weaknesses in this life. We are also reaching the end of the civilization of the Jaredites. Ether has been born and is a prophet of the Lord and begins to prophesy, and as we have seen in the past the people are upset because they cannot disbelieve Ether's words because of his faith.
The majority of this chapter is taken up by Moroni talking about faith and explaining about it and how all the prophets have had faith and used it to perform their mighty miracles. I have always been fascinated to learn that apparently the brother of Jared moved an entire mountain at some point in his life! Kinda makes me wish we didn't just have an abrigement of the record.
Faith is things which are hoped for, which are not seen, wherefore dispute not because you see not, for you receive no witness until after the trial of your faith. Those are the words of Moroni from verse 6 of this chapter. There are so many things we have to take on faith in this life. I once read, or rather had read to me, a paper called the Efficacy of Prayer by C.S. Lewis I believe it was who wrote it. And he talked about where or not prayer was really effective and if things worked out because we prayed about them or for other reasons. I am always reminded of this paper when I think of faith because one of his examples in there was getting married and does the woman you propose to say yes because you prayed about it, or would she have said yes even if you hadn't prayed?
Every man who has ever asked a woman to marry him knows about faith. You have the faith that she will say yes, but like Moroni says, you don't get the witness of that faith, her saying yes, until after the trial of that faith, that ridiculously long few seconds before she answers you! Most people would not think of proposing to your wife as faith, but it is. Now Alma actually adds the important verbiage to the definition of faith that helps us really define what faith is, he says that faith is to hope for things which are not seen which are true. We typically reserve the word faith for spiritual things but faith is a hope in anything which is true that is not seen, like your intended's love for you and desire to marry you.
One of the reasons we think of faith as only for spiritual things though is because we cannot perform anything unto the Lord without faith. We cannot pray without faith, we cannot give a blessing without it, we can't get baptized without it, we cannot approach God without it. That's why Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is the first principle of the Gospel. But even non-spiritual things require faith. Anything you have heard about that you believe but have never personally experienced requires you to take it on faith. If you have never before had a baby, then in reality you are taking it on faith that sex is required to have a baby. But once you have that first baby your faith becomes knowledge. And so it is with all things we have faith in.
The other half of this chapter is about weaknesses, which we have already talked about in the past. I did a quick review of all my posts and it seems that we have talked about weaknesses quite a bit already. It seems to be a repeating theme in the Book of Mormon. I believe that is because we are all given weaknesses to overcome in this life. Some are easier than others to overcome, some we never overcome in this life. The scriptures allude to the fact that we are each given a weakness in this life that we cannot overcome without God's help. And that is done on purpose so that we will turn to Him and humble ourselves so that we will turn to Him so that we can overcome those weaknesses with His help.
Some people would never turn to God without those weaknesses. They would try and do everything on their own and they would try and do everything they can without His help, which is contrary to the will of God. We must humble ourselves and turn to God so that with His help we can be prepared to enter the kingdom of heaven. Poor Moroni was so worried that all who read the Book of Mormon would make fun of him because of his weakness and I don't think a single person who reads the Book of Mormon knows or sees what weakness Moroni is talking about. I know he is comparing himself to Mahonri's writing and apparently his writing was very powerful, but without anything else to compare it to, I think Moroni's writing is also quite powerful.
But Moroni clearly thought of his writing as a weakness of his. Whether or not it was, we are all given weaknesses and we are all meant to turn to the Lord. As we do we will become better men and women and better able to serve the Lord and our fellow man. Come to Him who is mighty to save, who stands with open arms ready to receive you the scriptures say. Come unto Him and find rest from your cares and sorrows. He can heal you, and what's more, He WILL! Until tomorrow.
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