"Now, as I said concerning faith--that it was not a perfect knowledge--even so it is with my words. Ye cannot know of their surety at first, unto perfection, any more than faith is a perfect knowledge.
But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words."
Alma 32:26-27
This is a great lesson from Alma. The "even if you can no more than desire to believe" part always reminds me of the poster in Fox Mulder's office on the X-Files that said "I want to believe." I think that most of us don't want to believe blindly in something. We want to figure it out... find out whether we trust it, whether we think it is true or not before giving ourselves to any belief or cause wholeheartedly. And Alma understands that desire... I think God understands that desire. Alma offers us an experiment. Even if we can only desire to believe, then let that work in us enough that we can listen. In later verses, he talks a little bit more about the experiment and how we would know whether it is working or not.
I think this is so important. Sometimes it feels easy to sit on the fence... hey, we aren't sure if God is real, so unless he proves it, we'll just stay here. Unfortunately, we're all moving closer to God or away from him. Fence-sitting doesn't work... it's kind of a default choice that moves us slowly away from him unless we make some sort of effort to find out. And there are lots of ways to find out, but sometimes we need some help, to know how to listen to the answers. To know how God speaks to us. Luckily, we have Alma to help us out. And the missionaries, and each other. :) Today, whether we've tried the experiment or not, at whatever point we are in our relationship with God... let's take another step. Let's get to know him more deeply, and trust him wholeheartedly. :)
But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words."
Alma 32:26-27
This is a great lesson from Alma. The "even if you can no more than desire to believe" part always reminds me of the poster in Fox Mulder's office on the X-Files that said "I want to believe." I think that most of us don't want to believe blindly in something. We want to figure it out... find out whether we trust it, whether we think it is true or not before giving ourselves to any belief or cause wholeheartedly. And Alma understands that desire... I think God understands that desire. Alma offers us an experiment. Even if we can only desire to believe, then let that work in us enough that we can listen. In later verses, he talks a little bit more about the experiment and how we would know whether it is working or not.
I think this is so important. Sometimes it feels easy to sit on the fence... hey, we aren't sure if God is real, so unless he proves it, we'll just stay here. Unfortunately, we're all moving closer to God or away from him. Fence-sitting doesn't work... it's kind of a default choice that moves us slowly away from him unless we make some sort of effort to find out. And there are lots of ways to find out, but sometimes we need some help, to know how to listen to the answers. To know how God speaks to us. Luckily, we have Alma to help us out. And the missionaries, and each other. :) Today, whether we've tried the experiment or not, at whatever point we are in our relationship with God... let's take another step. Let's get to know him more deeply, and trust him wholeheartedly. :)
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