Zane just read us the talk he prepared for tomorrow in church. It will give you goosebumps.
(Happy Saturday night to all of you):
Six years ago my father had a traumatizing experience. You see, he and I were in Jacksonville Florida and needed a place to go eat. Naturally my six-year-old Self asked if we could go to a McDonald's with a play place. This was back in the good old days when people didn't have smart phones and GPS. My dad replied that he didn't know if there was one in Jacksonville. I told him that if we prayed we could find a McDonald's. My dad then explained that we couldn't just pray and one would magically appear; we had to have faith and work hard to find one. While I was processing this information, my dad was deep in personal prayer. You can only imagine how scared he must've felt because if we didn't find that McDonald's my faith would've been crushed forever. Thankfully we found McDonald's and I'm still here to give this talk.
If you haven't guessed yet my talk is on faith. So what exactly is faith? President Uchdorf says in this most recent conference that faith is a strong conviction about something we believe that moves us to do something we otherwise might not do. Alma chapter 32 verse 21 states faith is not a perfect knowledge of things. therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen which are true.
Many great and powerful things can be accomplished by faith. Take Abinadi for example. It must have taken so much faith to preach to King Noah, who had the power to kill him at will. And look what that accomplished, without it we would never know the names of Alma the younger, Captain Moroni, or even Mormon who had the knowledge of the plates given unto him by Ammaron, a descendent of Alma. The lesson here is that God has the bigger picture in mind and through faith and trust he can help us accomplish things that range from finding a McDonald's to baptizing thousand into the church.
In the talk I referenced earlier, president Uchdorf went on to say faith means trusting not only in God's wisdom but we also trust in his love. If you are, say, everyone in this room, you have had something go wrong in your life at some point in time and odds are you are also facing trials you cope with every day. that's OK. In Alma chapter 1 verse 25 it states, now this was a great trial to those who did stand fast in the faith. nevertheless, they were steadfast and immovable in keeping the Commandments of God, and they bore with patience the persecution which was heaped upon them. It doesn't matter how difficult your trials are, if you stand fast in your faith and trust in the Lord he can help you work through them. Our family's favorite scripture is Proverbs chapter 3 verses five and six. It reads trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. in all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths.
I have a true testimony that through faith and trust in the Lord he will guide us in our every day lives to help us accomplish things as simple as finding a McDonald's to working through major trials.
I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
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