Sara is the youngest of
our three children. She was always more cautious than
Emily or Andy. I don’t know why. We never tricked or
deceived her. She was just more cautious. In fact she
was born two weeks late. If the doctor had not come
after her, there is no telling how long she would have
remained in utero.
For example, when we went
to the water slide in our small Utah town, Andy immediately
went to sliding, Emily gathered friends, and Sara hid
in the car. Sara was only about six at the time. But
it was not her age that explained her behavior. It was
her temperament. She was cautious.
When I invited her to come
into the water park with us, she set her jaw and declared,
“I will not ride the water slide!” I assured her that
she did not have to ride the slide but we would love
to have her with us. She came reluctantly and warily.
When Sara had finally gotten
comfortable in the park, I asked her if she would like
to see what the waterside looked like. She eyed me suspiciously.
But she took my hand. We climbed the stairs and watched
people sit in the tube and shoot down the slide laughing.
We walked down the stairs and watched people shoot out
the tube into the little pool. Then again we climbed
the stairs and watched people sit in the tube and shoot
down the slide laughing. We walked down the stairs and
watched people shoot out the tube into the little pool.
Yet again we climbed the stairs and watched people sit
in the tube and shoot down the slide laughing. We walked
down the stairs and watched people shoot out the tube
into the little pool.
After uncounted repetitions
of the process, Sara asked if I could go down the slide
with her, hold her tight, and make sure she didn’t drown.
I assured her that I could. So, once more, we climbed
the stairs. When it was our turn, Sara sat in front
of me, I held her ribs, and we launched into adventure.
Sara began laughing immediately. All hint of concern
was gone now that she felt safe.
We laughed our way through
the drops and curves. As we approached the end of the
tube, I checked my hold on her ribs. When we shot out
into the pool, I pushed her into the air as I sank to
the bottom of the pool. We worked our way to the side
with me sputtering. As we climbed out, Sara enthused,
“Let’s go again!”
The Waterslide of Life
For some people, trusting
God is as natural as eating. It seems to be written
in their natures. For others it is as hard as it was
for Sara to launch into the water slide. (Lest the metaphor
be misapplied, I should note that Sara has great faith,
has served a faithful and loving mission to the people
of Paraguay, and is now married to Mike, with whom she
is raising sweet baby Gabe. She is a magnificent daughter
of God!) Yet those who never climb to the top and rush
down the slide — however reluctantly — miss out on the
biggest adventure and central purpose of life.
There are those who study
the waterslide from a distance. There are also those
who read about it or write about it. There are those
who hide in the restroom. And there are those who claim
to be involved in worthier pursuits than water sports.
But the fact remains, we all must finally say, “OK.
I’m not sure what this will be like. But Father has
promised to take care of me. I will go. I will trust
Him.” To fail to do so is to miss out. Or, as Robert
Louis Stephenson has said, “To miss the joy is to miss
all.”
I love the story — and
the lessons of the story — told by Francine Bennion:
For the
Dominion Day celebration in July, my parents and some
friends arranged to meet in the afternoon for a picnic
at Park Lake. My family and two others arrived first.
Camp kitchens were filling fast, and we needed a stove
for hamburgers and hotdogs. The men stayed at the entrance
of the park to meet our other friends, and under a darkening
sky the mothers and children walked some distance round
the lake to a three-walled rectangular shelter complete
with roof, two wooden tables, and a metal-covered cement
stove for wood fires. A violent thunderstorm came up,
splits and rumbles shaking the universe and us with
light, sound, and finally a deluge. Under the sheltering
roof we huddled in wonder, till an astonishing clap
of brilliance, tingle, shaking, and smell came all together:
lightning traveled down the chimney and exploded our
stove. Pieces of cement flew into bare arms, children
were thrown against walls, purple-brown lines streaked
down necks to ankles, and I ran out into rain and tall
wet weeds screaming my question: “I thought Heavenly
Father would take care of us?” No one was dead or permanently
damaged, and my mother came into the rain answering
me, “What do you think He did?” (p.108, 1986, A large
and reasonable context. In P. L. Barlow (Ed.), A
thoughtful faith: Essays on belief by Mormon scholars,
pp.103-116, Centerville, UT: Canon Press).
“What do you think He did?”
A wise mother saw the protection beyond the pain. This
story is instructive not only for those who have tried
faith and felt let down; it is also inspiring for those
of us who forget our faith. Sometimes we forget to see
every experience of life through the lens of faith.
In All Things
President Kimball quoted
Orson Whitney’s instructive observation:
“No pain that we suffer,
no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers
to our education, to the development of such qualities
as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that
we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we
endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies
our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender
and charitable, more worthy to be called the children
of God... and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil
and tribulation, that we gain the education that we
come here to acquire and which will make us more like
our Father and Mother in heaven” (Spencer
W. Kimball, Faith Precedes the Miracle, p. 98).
We are commanded to give
thanks in all things (Mosiah 26:39, D&C 59:7): “Thou
shalt thank the Lord thy God in all things.” That is
the perspective of faith. Every experience has purpose.
“Faith always sees more with her eye than logic can
reach with her hand” (p.8, Harry Emerson Fosdick: The
Meaning of Faith, 1918, NY: Association Press).
Trusting God
Some of us want God to
sign a contract before we trust Him. We want assurances
related to every contingency. We want guarantees. William
James encouraged a more trusting stance:
Just as
a man who in a company of gentlemen made no advances,
asked a warrant for every concession, and believed no
one's word without proof, would cut himself off by such
churlishness from all the social rewards that a more
trusting spirit would earn — so here, one who should
shut himself up in snarling logicality and try to make
the gods extort his recognition willy-nilly, or not
get it at all might cut himself off forever from his
only opportunity of making the gods' acquaintance.
For those who are cautious,
this willingness to trust may strain every particle
of courage. God graciously allows us to take baby steps
in the journey toward faith. “Yea, even if ye can no
more than desire to believe, let this desire work in
you” (Alma 32: 27).
The Perversity of Faith
Faith would be simple if
we had immediate and incontestable results from our
mini-experiments in trust. We believe. We are blessed.
We believe. We are blessed. But God is aiming for something
more mature than vending-machine mentality. In response
to our faith, we will often get new challenges — along
with inner assurance. It seems that God is pointing
us away from the evidence of convenience toward the
assurance within. W. E. Orchard said it well:
“Oh God,
too near to be found, too simple to be conceived, too
good to be believed... Show us how foolish it is to
doubt Thee, since Thou Thyself dost set questions which
disturb us; reveal our unbelief to be faith fretting
at its out worn form... Teach us to trust not to cleverness
or learning, but to that inward faith which can never
be denied. Lead us out of confusion to simplicity.
Call us back from wandering without to find Thee
at home within” (Fosdick, p.34, emphasis added).
So faith invites us to
evaluate God and His work by something more than the
material evidence. He invites us to listen to the whisperings
of that still, small voice that testifies that God is
good, He loves us, and He is blessing us in the way
that is perfect for us.
To interpret difficulties
and disappointments as blessings is a perverse set of
mind that requires a lot of faith. And that is what
God is looking for.
Learning Faith
If a friend asked me to
define faith, I would find it difficult. It is more
than believing there is a God. It is more than loving
Him. It includes trusting Him — but it is more. Maybe
it is the willingness to do the things that we think
He wants us to do. That is a complicated formula.
God often invites us by
His subtle messenger the Holy Ghost — who is never announced
by blaring trumpets. He gives subtle hints. When we
practice noticing them and following them, we grow in
faith. When we disregard them or demand more specificity,
our faith turns to confusion. So faith is the willingness
to listen carefully and follow gladly — even when the
message is nothing more than a hint. When God heads
toward the waterslide, I want to follow Him.
I also compare having faith
to a horse that does not have to be dragged by the bridle.
Rather, as the Rider leans in the saddle, the horse
senses — and follows. Or faith can be compared to going
toward the Light — even small hints of light. “That
which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light,
and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that
light growth brighter and brighter until the perfect
day” (D&C 50:24).
Stretching Our Faith
Lest any be smug, we should
all ask--even the most faithful among us, “What is the
next opportunity to grow our faith?” Are we ready to
see God’s goodness in our difficulties? Are we willing
to see God in the ordinary? Do we seek God actively?
Do we thank Him for every breath we take?
With beloved, departed
Elder Maxwell, I rejoice in the words of Malcolm Muggeridge:
I feel
so strongly at the end of my life that nothing can happen
to us in any circumstance that is not a part of God's
purpose for us. Therefore we have nothing to fear,
nothing to worry about except that we should rebel against
His purpose and that we should fail to detect His purpose
in things and fail to establish a relationship with
Him. On that basis there can be no black despair, no
throwing in of our hand.
You know
it's a funny thing but when you are old as I am there
are all sorts of extremely pleasant things that happen
to you. The pleasantest thing of all is that you wake
up in the night at about, say, 3 a.m. and you find that
you are half in and half out of your battered old carcass.
It seems quite a toss-up whether you go back and resume
full occupancy of your mortal body or make off toward
the bright glow you see in the sky, the lights of the
city of God. In this limbo between life and death you
know beyond any shadow of doubt that as an infinitesimal
particle of God's creation you are a participant in
God's purpose and that His purpose is loving not hating,
is creative not destructive, is everlasting and not
temporal, is universal and not particular.
With this certainty comes
an extraordinary sense of comfort and joy. Nothing
that happens in this world need shake that feeling.
All the happenings in this world, including the most
terrible disasters and suffering, will be seen in eternity
as in some mysterious way a blessing, as a part of God's
love. We ourselves are a part of that love and only
insofar as we belong to that scene does our existence
have any meaning at all. The necessity of life is to
know God. Otherwise our mortal existence is no more
that a night in a second-class hotel.”
Whatever the stature and
vigor of our faith, may we be strengthening and growing
it. May we be reaching toward God.
