Friday, September 12, 2014

D&C 42:48-52 -- On Faith and Infirmity

"And again, it shall come to pass that he that hath faith in me to be healed, and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed.
He who hath faith to see shall see.
He who hath faith to hear shall hear.
The lame who hath faith to leap shall leap.
And they who have not faith to do these things, but believe in me, have power to become my sons; and inasmuch as they break not my laws thou shalt bear their infirmities."
D&C 42:48-52


Faith can work miracles.  I think that we all believe that on some level, but how far do we practice it?  It's very different to have an intellectual understanding of the concept than to know the truth of it through personal experience.  It's the same with other ideas in the gospel.  God can change our hearts.  He can make our weaknesses into strengths.  He can forgive us and make us clean.  ... But we don't all believe that or live that on the same level.  Most of us are still learning those lessons, little by little.  And what strikes me the most about this selection is that God makes a provision for those that don't have enough faith to be healed.  We, those of us who still lack enough faith to achieve the miracle, still have the power to become the sons and daughters of God.  It also says "thou shalt bear their infirmities."  "Thou" in this case not saying that we will bear our own infirmities, although of course we have to if we don't have enough faith, but "thou" referring to a different group: the church... everyone.  We, as the friends and neighbors and brothers and sisters of people of varying degrees of faith, need to accept those infirmities, and work with each other anyway.  We need to understand and accept that we're not all at the same level in everything.  Some of us have more faith, and some have less.  And we're at different levels in pretty much everything else too.  It's back to the mote vs beam idea (Luke 6:42).  If we criticize someone for having a weakness that they could overcome through faith, are we overlooking a weakness in ourselves as we say that?  We develop faith in different things at different levels.  Maybe we have enough faith to go to church, but not to pay tithing.  Maybe we have faith enough to pray, but not to read our scriptures.  Maybe we have learned to have faith that God can help us find our car keys, but we haven't learned yet that God can help us forgive... or see, or hear, or leap.
Today, let's work on our faith and expand our capacity to allow God's hand to work in our lives.  Let's renew our determination to act on God's will and to sincerely seek him out and listen to his advice.  And when our faith is weak, let's still work to be his sons and his daughters, and to accept and help the people around us as they do the same.

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