Exceedingly Great Faith - Alma 13:3

I had just a few weeks left in my mission when this scripture (Alma 13:3) wormed it's way into my thoughts, my study and probably my teaching as well. If you get a chance to read it, do! It talks about the great war in Heaven before we came here and how the war was won.

It was Brother Carpenter, the father of a family we were really close to, who first asked me the question that made me look at this scripture so differently. The scripture talks about the 'exceedingly great faith' of those who fought on the Lord's side. Brother C. asked me, "What did they have faith in? How can they have exceedingly great faith in God and in Jesus Christ when they were living with them? They were taught by their presence. So, what does it mean in this scripture that they had exceedingly great faith?"

This question made me think. It made me study and research. I wanted to find an answer for Brother Carpenter. In the end, I came up with a few reasons.

This is what I think it meant to have "exceedingly great faith" in the context of those living with God before they came to this early life.

There were two plans presented in Heaven, there was God's Plan, the Plan of Happiness that centered on Christ and his Atonement for all mankind. His plan was also based on our agency, our ability to withstand the trials and temptations of this world and to make the right choices. To repent when we made mistakes and to accept Christ and his gospel in this life.  The other plan was presented by Lucifer, it was a plan that he said would ensure that every single one of God's children would make it back. There would be no agency, there would be no choice. All of God's children had to make a choice right then and there as to which plan they would support. Two-thirds of those children chose God's plan and those two-thirds are here on this earth. Those two-thirds are those who exercised our great faith. But HOW?

There are three things I came up with:

1. We had faith in our Heavenly Father that his plan was the right one for us. We had faith that agency was the only way we could learn and make our own choices-even our own mistakes. We had faith that his proposed plan was the only way that we could become more like Him-which is what we really, really wanted.

2. Once we had faith in the plan, we then had to have faith in Jesus Christ, our older brother. We had to have faith that he would fulfill His earthly mission. He would come to earth, he would be sinless though tempted, he would teach and minister, he would suffer for our sins and all our hardships on earth, he would die for us, and then He would be resurrected so that all of us could one day be resurrected. We had to have exceedingly great Faith that he would be able to do all of that because of his eternal, and unsurpassing love for each of us.  

But again, although there was a war in heaven over this decision, we were there and we saw and were taught the Father's Plan by the Father! We saw, and we knew of Christ's love for each of us! We still exercised our faith and choose the plan, but there is one more thing that we had to have faith in.

3. We had to have exceedingly great faith in OURSELVES. The plan in opposition the plan of happiness said that every person would make it back to live with God. That sounds very easy.

But we had heard the Father's plan, we had faith that he was right. We heard Jesus say he would go and be our Savior, we had faith in him. That final and maybe most hardest part to accept was to accept that we would have to go down to earth, away from our Father, and we would have to make choices, face temptation and trials, and make the right choices that would get us back to God. We had to have faith that we could do it. We had to look inside ourselves and ask if we could do it, if we could make all the right decisions, if we could give our will to the Father so that he could make us into the person that He knows we truly are. We had to exercise 'Exceedingly Great Faith' in ourselves.

But guess what? You did that. I did that. Because you and I are here, I know that we had Faith that we could do it. 

Sometimes, I forget that. Sometimes, life is hard. But then, luckily I'm surrounded by people who remind me that I am a Child of God and that He loves me, and He also has Faith in me. That makes a big difference. Whenever I come to this scripture in my study of the Book of Mormon, I'm reminded of Brother Carpenter and his question, and I'm lucky that he asked it and that it stuck with me. And just when things start to get stormy in life, sometimes Heavenly Father reminds me of this scripture. He did that this past weekend and I'm grateful for his constant love for me.

I know that sometimes I get caught up in everything going on around me, but there is so much more to life and to eternity than what is just right here surrounding you. There is so much more to the Plan of Happiness that we don't understand yet. But it is a plan of Happiness. So if you're not happy right now, remember that you can be and that it will all be okay. 

Chariots of Fire

Growing up, this girl was my best friend, pretty much my sister. She's my niece, and 18 months younger than me. That beautiful baby is her 9 month old daughter: 

Three Weeks ago, she was diagnosed with Hodgkin Lymphoma, she's days away from her second Chemotherapy treatment. Last week, in talking to her, she told me of an experience she had. In a dream, she woke up in the Spirit World and she was sure she had passed on. As she looked around, her grandpa, my dad, walked over to her with a huge smile on his face. He put his arm around her and gave her a side hug, he never said a word, just smiled. She said, it scared me at first because it made me think I was going to die. But then I realized that it was meant to give me comfort. It was meant to let me know that there are people on the other side that are looking out for me as well as people here.

Although this was her experience and not mine, it was very powerful for me for two reasons. The first reason was the fact that it was my dad to come to her. Why you ask? This girl has had four grandparents die in the space of 18 months. Three of them die in the last five months. And I think there is a reason that my dad was the one to represent all of those loved ones to my niece: 

Mainly because at the time of his death in April, he hadn't walked in over 25 years. In her dream, he walked to her and put his arm around her. It demonstrates that after this life, we are made whole because of Jesus Christ. He wanted her to see that no matter the consequence of the cancer on her body, she will one day also be made whole.  

The other thing I wanted to address from this experience is that there are people on the other side cheering for us. I thought instantly of this quote by Elder Jeffery R. Holland: "Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha" (2 Kings 6:16-17).

In the gospel of Jesus Christ you have help from both sides of the veil, and you must never forget that. When disappointment and discouragement strike--and they will--you remember and never forget that if our eyes could be opened we would see horses and chariots of fire as far as the eye can see riding at reckless speed to come to our protection. They will always be there, these armies of heaven, in defense of Abraham's seed.” 

 I'm grateful to know that truth, as two of those grandparents in the spirit world are my parents, I miss them so much but I know that they are there, that they care and that they will always come to my aid and my defense. 

Not Fair

Somewhere, somehow, in those first year of our life, we come up with a concept that life should be 'Fair'. So let me put this out there, what exactly does 'fair' mean? Does it mean equality? Justice? Mercy? In a family, doesn't it mean each sibling gets treated exactly the same? Does it mean that the good and the bad should be handed out equally, without individual reguard?

Whatever it means, it teaches us that we should expect to have the exact same, or at least not less then another person. If they get a piece of cake, we get a piece of cake. It doesn't matter if we ate our dinner. You know what I mean, right? 

I remember reading 'The Princess Bride' in High School, and a quote from the book says, "Life is not fair. It's just fairer than death. That's all." But even then, I still didn't fully understand the fact that life is not fair.

I went on a mission to California for 18 months, I met people who had everything they could ever want, and I met people who lived the smallest of homes and had so split rent between three different families to afford living there. That doesn't seem fair, but still, I believed that fairness had to exist out there. 

This year, I learned that life is not fair. I've been ejected out of my comfort zone and into the line of fire, the line of decision, the line of action. In my mind, that is not fair.

Yesterday, as I sat in church, thinking about this year and what I have learned, I had a thought come to me. I hope you'll understand it, take it at face value and chew it around in your mind until you can make your own sort of sense out of it. 

My thought was this: This year I have thought and prayed, "Heavenly Father, this isn't fair!" And every time I expressed this, in thought, in writing, in prayer, the thought and answer has come back to me from my Heavenly Father, "I know. I know that it is not fair, but it will be okay." -and although that doesn't seem like much of an answer. I can accept that far better than any other answer that people have tried to give me. It's so validating to have someone recognize that IT IS NOT FAIR. And once that has been acknowledged, I'm better able to listen to what I need to hear. I'm not blaming God for all the trials I have this year, and I know that he is not punishing me for the mistakes I have made. I'm just learning and growing and that is what I am supposed to do. And He is there to bind up wounds and keep me safe. 

I know that is true. In Preach My Gospel, in teaching of the atonement it says: "As we rely on the Atonement of Jesus Christ, He an help us endure our trials, sicknesses, and pain. We can be filled with joy, peace, and consolation. All that is unfair about life can be made right through the Atonement of Jesus Christ." 

Life is not fair, it's time that we get that thought out of our head. What we want and what we need are sometimes things and experiences so vastly different than we think, but we can't learn because we can't see past the unfairness of it. So I'll challenge you, when you think something you're going through is not fair, I want you to get down on your knees and tell God just that. "Father, this is not fair." and I am sure that He will agree with you and that as you continue to turn to Him, He will help you realize what you need to learn.