Thanks for visiting my blog. It’s funny that you should comment on this particular essay today. Just this morning I was reading from the First Presidency message in the March 2009 issue of the Ensign. In it, President Monson invites us to come onto Christ in Prayer and Faith. On page 6, in the second column, third paragraph, we read:

“We cannot know what faith is if we have never had it, and we cannot obtain it as long as we deny it. Faith and doubt cannot exist in the same mind at the same time, for one will dispel the other.”

I had someone else comment on another essay where I quoted this concept that he had never heard of it before. It’s good to know that prophets still teach it as part of the gospel. Cheers!

The healthy one is one that is in your way and that you should overcome in order to increase your faith.
My answer about faith that lead me back to the church came from this faith vs doubts issue. I was really wondering and questionning everything about all that had been my world growing up. I questionned even the fact that I could have had had a testimony since all my testimonies just matched a logic that did not seem to apply to my life. I felt really torn until I heard this from a muslim scholar saying that a faith that does not doubt is a dead faith.
All of a sudden I understood that this doubt I was feeling was actually ok AND a good thing.
Yet the other one is the one that leads to fear. I have experienced both and I can tell the difference between the two.
One leads to humility because to remove it you know that you need to humble yourself, ask for guidance and for what you lack. the other one just take the place of faith and increase until it has destroyed everything and leave you truly powerless.

Using the word ‘fear’ in the headlines has always been a common practice, but I swear it has doubled or tripled in the last few weeks. Like you, I have asked my wife how she feels about all the uncertainty being expressed with the financial meltdown that has been taking place over the last little while.

“It’s one of the signs of the last days,” she says. “We knew this was coming. What’s the big deal?” It affects her directly in her work as people usually put off purchasing big ticket items in times of uncertainty. She hears a lot of, “We’re waiting until after the election is over before we buy that new hot tub.” It’s a good thing she does books for more than one business.

I think that when the major cosmic catastrophes that are prophesied finally do show up, I will be very calm. Part of me will be saying, “We were warned,” and the other part of me will probably be perplexed by the reaction in the headlines – “Asteroid on target to hit the earth – comet tail reigns debris in earth’s path.” I hope the world doesn’t panic, but I suspect that it will be otherwise.

I do not doubt that we are in the last days but I do not fear what is about to happen – both in terms of the economic threat and in terms of the cataclysms that are just around the corner. Why? Because it will soften the hearts of the people and prepare us for the coming of the Savior. I look forward to the changes.

My understanding is that the General Authorities have a kind of motto, which is: “We do not take counsel from our fears.”

The gospel could not progress if we (Latter-day Saints) did not face our fears and overcome them.

My latest post on “Mormon Insights” discusses how the Bible describes a frightening wild world “but the wildness must be faced.”

Some have the gift of faith. I think you are one of them. To such individuals, fear vanishes easily.

To others, probably more like myself, fears and doubts exist in the periphery like flies or pests that occasionally have to be swatted away. To some, faith comes with a little more effort than others. Such are the gifts of the spirit.

I live with a person of faith, my wife. I asked her the other day whether she was bothered by the falling stock market. She said, “It will all work out for the good.” She is right, but the glasses I wear are not as rosy as hers.

I love the clarity of your essays. Our perspectives are mostly the same, but we see through slightly different lens. Yet, we both have testimonies. For that I am grateful.