Without Faith we can do Nothing

Today I read Doctrine and Covenants section 8, another revelation given for the benefit of Oliver Cowdery. As I was reading it, I could not help but think about how much the Lord is concerned with us and with our happiness. I know that is kind of a weird thing to think about while reading this section, but that is what came to mind because the Lord is responding to Oliver's request.

Oliver, while serving as scribe for the translation of the Book of Mormon desired to be able to translate the record also. I can perfectly understand his desires. How many of us have had a close friend get a really neat gift and had to watch them use it right in front of us? It can be hard for sure!

However, the Lord gives good counsel here, like we should be surprised by that! But I actually meant he gives good counsel to all of us. He teaches us to recognize the Spirit of Revelation. It has always surprised me how the Lord works in such subtle ways. Surprising because even on the most important aspects, namely the questions dealing with who we are to marry, should I take this job, etc, He still uses our spirits to communicate to us. For some of us, this is no big deal. For others of us that maybe have not spent a lot of time with things of the spirit and learning to recognize the Spirit in our lives, it can be quite challenging.

Even sometimes for those of us who think we are learned in the ways of the Spirit, it can be rough. I remember back in 2006 I was living in an apartment with 2 very good friends and our lease was about to expire and we wanted to live somewhere not quite as expensive. The apartment was going to raise our rent if we stayed there, so there was no incentive to stay. At the time, I was not planning leaving the city I lived in so I was contemplating buying a house. No matter how long I prayed about it, how often I went to the temple about it I just did not feel strongly one way or the other. So finally I asked my father for a blessing and was told it was my choice and the Lord was ok with it one way or the other. Have you ever noticed that the natural man in us causes us to feel certain ways? Like when the Lord is actively involved in your life you might feel that you wish He would let you make certain choices? But when He lets you make certain choices you wish He would just tell you what to do? Yeah, me too!

The other verse that I liked from this chapter is verse 10, where the Lord tells Oliver that without faith we can do nothing. The first time I read this I thought it was really a strange thing to say, because I thought there were lots of things you could do without faith. However, if you think about it, there isn't. Faith is a hope for things which are unseen which are true. The primary song tells us that we can faith in as simple a thing as the sun rising in the morning. So with that in mind, it takes faith to flip a light switch, to turn a car's key in the ignition, to turn the handle on the door to open it, and every other thing we do. Put in that context, the Lord is right, we cannot do anything without faith. It all requires the belief that what we are going to do will have the desired outcome. I invite you to ponder on that thought for a little while.

I have mentioned before that Doctrine and Covenants is a really neat book of scripture but it can be tedious at times because of how specific it can be to the person the revelation was given to. However, with most of them you can liken the scriptures to yourself and make it worthwhile. I think most of us do that already but I invite you to continue to do it and see what the Lord can teach you from this wonderful book of scripture. I know I look forward to learning many new things on this read through. Until tomorrow.