Faith is Your Craft

Faith is not just something you have, it is something you build. This week Cydni and Sher dive deep into what faith actually is, where it comes from, and why the Hebrew word for it, emunah, means something much bigger than belief. They walk through the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11, talk about the man who waited 38 years by the healing pool, and ask the question that changes everything: do you have the faith to not get what you want? This week's episode is "Faith Is Your Craft" and we are so glad you are here!

This Week's Challenge
Reframe how you see your faith and become the craftsman of it. Show up every day to build it, and let it become the steady, reliable foundation of your entire life.

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Show Notes

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Transcript

Episode 164 - Faith is Your Craft

Cydni: [00:00:00] Iana had her first softball game, not soccer. She had her first softball game and on Saturday she had her first practice ever. The first time she's ever touched a glove or a bat or a softball, and that girl hit the ball and she took off running and she did not stop She should have, but she didn't. Maybe partly 'cause she didn't understand how to play the game. Maybe it was faith and confidence.

I don't know what it was, but she got to first and she loved how that felt. And she went to second and they threw the ball. Towards the second basement and it missed, and she took a turn and made it to third, and the ball followed her all the way home and she made it home. And I thought, you know what? If we could have faith and confidence, possibly some ignorance in the way that Iana had with her first game of softball, I believe that our faith could become perfection. 

I would like to also add one girl round a third instead of first, and one girl threw the ball like a dodge ball to get the other [00:01:00] girl out.

So it was fabulous. welcome to the Cydni and Sher Podcast. 

Sher: Last week, Cydni, we talked about the Spartans and how the Persians attacked them and let them know that the arrows they were gonna send their way was gonna. Dark in the skies. They were gonna send so many over.

And the Spartans reframed it and said, great. We're gonna be able to fight in the shade, then bring it on. And then we also mentioned and introduced in that episode, basic gospel principles that will help us fight in the shade when it's our turn to get in that shade.

Cydni: Could we just address that one word again? Reframe, because she and I both have what would be the word? Like forcefully, God forced us to use this principle this last week. 

To reframe our situations. 

Sher: We had some practice 

Cydni: She and I both decided to be huge spenders this week, like massive, huge spenders with all our excess money. I chose plumbing [00:02:00] and she chose the vet,. Life happened to us and it was pricey. And I was telling, she, you know, I told my friend this week moment by moment, day by day, all the things that are going on. I'm like, our family is so sick, they're throwing up. But then there's a plumbing situation. There's been a quiet leak that I touched our wall and it was mushy. And I thought, no, this is a dream. There's gonna be like a butterfly man who appears and tells me I could juggle, I don't know, something. And no, that did not happen. It was real.

And I was just telling my friend of all these things that were just like, this is going on. They're pretty sure there's gonna be mold in our house and we're gonna have to rip out the basement as well as the bathroom.

But by some miracle, there was no mold. And the man had said when he was in investigating, he said, I would bet my life savings, there's going to be mold. I've done this for a long time. I see what it looks like. I'm going to find mold. And he came upstairs and he said, I've never. Had this happened before, there's no mold.

I don't know how to explain this. So I told my friend all of this and she said, oh my gosh, Cyd [00:03:00] it sounds like you had a wonderful week. And it stopped me in my tracks. At first, I thought. Excuse me. Have you listened to anything? I have told you this whole week, and I was telling Sher about that and she said she reframed it and I thought, you're absolutely right. She did reframe it and reframing is choosing, making a decision to see what's going on differently, to decide to see something with eyes full of gratitude, and hearts full of gratitude. To be grateful for the blessings that are there because I was living in the negative. And the exhaustion. And one thing Sher and I did say is that it shows that you can reframe something and still be exhausted. They do go together. And you had a situation too. 

Sher: I did. It was just several nights of Rudy crying all night long he was puking and diarrhea all over outside, inside, everywhere. Had to go to the vet a few times, but he's good now. So [00:04:00] I'm grateful. That he's okay, which is really the most important thing. he's fine. 

Cydni: And we were both scared. Let's be real. Yeah. I was so nervous for his wellbeing and you also had such a good vet. 

Sher: Yeah. the vet was awesome because I was positive she was gonna like, shake us down for x-rays and blood tests and all of that, and instead she said, you know what? We're gonna try first is. Because I had to take him to the er and the ER vet put him on this medication and the normal vet was pretty positive that Rudy was having a reaction to that medication, which actually made everything worse. So she's like, I'm not gonna do any of that until we take him off this and we're gonna give him a couple of days and see how he does. 

Cydni: Yeah, we both had chaos in our houses, and yet we both got to experience little personal miracles and we had gone on a walk and just talked about what had been going on and we both found ourselves saying, I'm just so grateful. There was no mold. I'm just so grateful. Rudy's okay. The reframing really was a state of gratitude and it [00:05:00] really has changed our. And helped us to, I don't know, not drive off a cliff, which currently I think I'm grateful for that. So just like the Spartans, they were grateful for the shade and we had a lot of arrows thrown at us, but there's some shade. Right, 

Sher: absolutely. . So today we want to really focus on reframing and we also wanna focus on a very basic, important gospel principle, which is faith.

The Spartans were not dumb. They knew what was coming their way. They understood very clearly what it meant when the Persian said they were gonna shoot so many arrows? they were gonna be in the shade. But they were ready.

The reason the Spartans were ready and had confidence and they had faith is because they had been training since they were seven years old. they stayed in their training until they were 20. they definitely were prepared for any situation. They had done the work. They just didn't know exactly how all of it would end, because really it was 300, versus [00:06:00] the 100,000 or 2 million Persians, depending on which historian you read. 

Cydni: I think last week we. Ended on 3.7 million to boost it. 

Sher: Okay. 3.7 is great. So they knew what was coming their way. I mean, , that is some pretty tough odds there. But We also know some things are gonna be coming our way. We know that Satan wants to make us miserable, and we know that time and chance is going to happen to all of us. And we also know that we are living in the last days. But we also know that someday our Savior is going to return and he will reign on earth. And we also know that someday we can live with our Savior and our Heavenly Father again. the question is, are we ready for it?

Are we training and preparing like the Spartans did to get ready and fight in their battles? Are we doing the same thing to, prepare for the battles that we are currently fighting in or will be fighting in? 

Cydni: I love that question. Are we ready for it? And along with that question, I was listening to an institute teacher and he asked the question, how [00:07:00] does faith come into the world? How does faith come into our individual lives?

And the answer is from Joseph Smith, the lectures on faith. And he said that faith. comes into our personal world when God reveals himself to us through the veil, when he reaches out and he touches us personally he shows himself to us in one way or another, We could go through the scriptures and we could see different moments where God reaches out and He touches the heart of somebody, and that puts in them faith that God exists, that He's there, that He loves us, and He's aware of us individually and that will grow. So faith comes when God reveals himself to us in individual ways. And when we become aware of that, that is what fuels a seed within us.

 And that will happen for us all in different ways and different moments of desperation, of darkness. Or, I was even thinking with Iana, why was she so confident [00:08:00] with her ability in softball when she's never played before? It's because she's been putting in the work with a sport.

She works every single day at soccer. She's had lots of games, lots of experience under her belt with a sport, so if there's a ball and there's running, she could figure it out. And so it's a seed that's planted that we've talked about before, usually in difficult times in the muddy and the murky and in the manure where God reaches out and for my son Rock, I know it's when he prayed, when he was little during a hail storm and he prayed. It would stop and it immediately stopped. That was God revealing himself to Rock to say, I heard your prayer. You're important to me, and I will hear your prayer again, and I'm going to answer this one.

And he does that from the time we're little. As we seek him and we have more and more of these experiences, it's been said before, like a ray of light, a little ray of light, and it's just becomes a glorious light if we spend time being aware of these moments. 

Sher: I think that's the key right [00:09:00] there, when we're going through these challenges. Maybe God is trying to reveal himself in those challenges He's giving us those moments that we're humble enough that we're actually seeking Him and looking for Him in those moments.

And I think about it, you know, I started primary when I was three years old I was baptized when I was eight, and I had awesome parents that taught me how to pray and read the scriptures with me. And I feel like I've been in this training ground since birth and I should have more confidence in the work that I've put in and the preparation that I've been doing in the gospel.

But I think that we live in a world that is so messed up and so confusing that it. messes with our confidence and with our training, because Satan's always moving the goalposts. Like we think, okay, we've got this situation figured out, and then, he throws something else at us that we need to stay in training for, and so this training needs to be constant

we can never stop. We have to continue doing this because the other side is never stopping satan wants to make us miserable. And [00:10:00] so to combat that, we need to keep working and preparing to build our faith.

in Hebrews chapter 11, it is also called the. The Hall of Fame of faithful people, and these are people who put in the work. These are examples for us to learn from, of people that worked and prepared and built their faith.

And here's the thing that I really love about this chapter, is they were people that kept moving forward when they couldn't see the outcome. Just like the Spartans trained and they stood firm. When the moment came, they didn't know exactly the outcome, how it would turn out, but they knew that's why they were there.

They were made for that moment. And that's why we're here. We are made for this moment. And so I wanna focus for just a minute on the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11. So starting with verse one, it says Now faith is the substance of things hoped for. The evidence of things not seen.

Cydni: When I was reading over your outline, I remembered a talk I had listened to by Tiffany [00:11:00] Turley, A BYU speech, and she talks about faith that you don't see, but she also talked about when Peter walked on water.

When did he become afraid? He became afraid because of the wind, and it says he saw the wind and she says, you don't see wind. That's not something we see. We see evidence of wind and just as much as faith is something you're hoping for that you can't see. It's important to remember that fear also is something that we don't see so often. Peter didn't see the wind, but he was afraid. Afraid enough to start sinking we have also been talking about courage so much lately, and I just thought this was such a good reminder that both of these things are things we cannot see. Faith is something we can't see. Fear is something we can't see. We get to decide. We get to reframe our decision on what we're going to focus on because that is what's going to grow. 

Sher: That is a really good point. And as we've been [00:12:00] studying, especially lately, I feel like that's been coming up a lot, Cydni, is that it's our choice. Like do we want to focus on Christ or do we wanna focus on something else? It's our decision and , the example that we have with the Spartans that is a little different is at least the Spartans could see their enemy and the arrows, and sometimes we don't even have that advantage.

But in Hebrews, it lists specific examples of what faith can do, even when we really can't see what's going on or what exactly is gonna happen.

Before we go over examples, I wanna talk about verse two. It says, for by its elders obtained a good report. Now this is just my translation. So take it for what you will. To me this means that faith is what will get us a good report when we return to our Father in Heaven.

Cydni: I hope I get a passing report. Just passing. 

Sher: I would be good with that too. Is 

Cydni: the D passing? Is that what it is? 

Sher: Yeah. Yeah. 

Cydni: I just hope for a D, 

Sher: right? That would be great.

Cydni: Like the quiet part of heaven. I've heard it's really busy on the other side, and I'm like, is there like the [00:13:00] quiet one? Don't you get the kitchen or something? I think your family has said 

Sher: Yeah, one of, one of my aunts has already determined that we're gonna end up as the kitchen help in heaven. 

Cydni: I wanna feed like the fish in the pond by myself. 

Sher: I'll be dishing those mashed potatoes to Moses as he comes through.

Cydni: The never ending pile of mashed potatoes. 

Sher: Which my mom made. 

Cydni: I bet he would part it with gravy. 

Sher: I'm sure Cydni Alright. So, faith is what is gonna give us that good report when we get to heaven. This means that faith really is an important basic of the gospel because it's reported on in verse six. It says, but without faith, it is impossible to please him. For he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. So to me what this means is we can't return to God if we don't believe in his words or that he exists

again, going back to what you were saying. If we don't wanna find God, then we won't. But if we want to find God, we want to seek Christ, we [00:14:00] will. And to me, this is saying the same thing happens when we die. If we want to seek out Christ, if we want to seek out our Heavenly Father, we will find him.

So here are the examples from the Hall of Faith where the faithful believed without being able to see first.

So it starts with, the world was created by faith and that Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice. Through faith. Enoch was translated. Noah built an arc for flood that had not happened yet. Abraham left for a land he had never seen. Sarah conceived Isaac in her old age. Both Abraham and Sarah believed in the promise that their posterity would be like the stars in the skies, even though they wouldn't live to see any of it.

Abraham followed God, even to the point of being willing to sacrifice. Isaac, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph each passed blessings forward. With Faith Moses and all the miracles that happened with the children of [00:15:00] Israel, that was all done with faith. The walls of Jericho fell because of faith.

Samson David Samuel had great moments of miracles. , Because of faith. And then it also says in Hebrews and others had trial of cruel mockings and surgings y moreover of bonds and imprisonment. And finally, and these all have obtained a good report through faith.

That last little bit where it says, and finally it's referring to those apostles and saints that lived during the time that Hebrews was being written, they were lucky because it says in verse 40, God having provided some better thing for us. So they received what? The previous saints, that whole list that was just given. What they were all waiting for the Savior and they were lucky. They reframed it. They were lucky enough to learn from the Savior here on earth. And the reason I said reframing, obviously they got to see the [00:16:00] Savior, which is an incredible blessing, but when the savior died, the persecution didn't stop they are now the apostles then and the saints, then they were the persecuted.

They were the ones like Peter, it's told that got crucified upside down and the apostles and the saints were systematically. Hunted down and wiped out, and they are reframing it and saying, what a great time this is what all of those previous saints were waiting for was the Savior to be born here on earth and they got to see it and witness it.

Cydni: You said something there. With the word waiting that caught my attention. I thought of two things. One, I remember a talk by Elder Bednar where he is giving a blessing to a man who it has cancer again. And he just had gotten married and they wanted, of course, they were hoping he'd be healed.

And before he started the blessing, Elder Bedner had a question come to his mind that actually kind of terrified him to ask. And he looked at the young man and he said, usually I [00:17:00] ask if you have the faith to be healed, but I want to ask you, do you have faith to not be healed?

And when I think of faith as a basic principle, It's a core principle, and it stretches us deeply. Do we have the faith Do you have the confidence? Do you trust God to not be healed? Do you trust God to not get what your heart wants right now? 

When I think of the word waiting, the story that touches my heart the most is found in John five I've heard this story before, but you know when you hear stories and then something happens where you hear it again and it. Changes you and everything about it becomes not just a story you've heard in Sunday school, but it becomes part of your faith and your testimony. That's what's happened with this.

I was listening to the Stand forever. Series. It's by Elder Lawrence e Corbridge and the way he brings this to life. So a lot of these words are actually coming from him just to give him credit ' cause he has passed and he could haunt me. [00:18:00] So in this story, Jesus is returning from Galilee to Jerusalem, and there's an old man who's waiting by the side of a pool, and this is a pool where they believe you can be healed.

When they see waves in the water, they believe that an angel has touched the water, causing the waves, and whoever gets in the water first is healed. This time of year, it's especially busy because it's the Jewish festival and there's more people than usual and even less of a chance ever for him to reach the healing pool.

Elder Corbridge says, and still he waits and still he watches the waves of the water and still he hopes in quiet desperation to be one who is healed by this water And for 38 years, this man attempts to be healed in this water. And each time he tries and each time he is disappointed.

This time as he waits, trying to get closer to the water, there's a commotion behind him. And he uses all of his strength to turn [00:19:00] and look to see what the fuss is about. Before him is a man and he doesn't know who he is, and at first nothing is said. And then Jesus said to him, wilt thou be made whole. And the man answered him. Sir, I have no man when the water is troubled to put me into the pool, but while I am coming, another step down before me. And Jesus sayeth unto him, rise, take up thy bed and walk. And immediately the man was made whole. Obviously. I don't know what 38 years looks like yet. That was the joke. 

Sher: Oh, that was really funny.

Cydni: But I assume it's for those who know, it's a really, really long time. But this for me has really stretched my idea of faith in waiting on the Lord because he did show up week after week, day after day, and he couldn't even get himself down there. But he had so much faith it would cause him to take those kind of actions.

And I read once that your actions will expose your faith. This man's faith has been exposed to show up for 38 years. [00:20:00] Not knowing if he can get in. Not only that, but having people step in front of him, other believers who would push him out of the way.

I think that's part of the story that actually makes me feel emotion is that there's all these other people who also need healing and they would push each other out of the way that is hard to read and know that we do that to each other in different ways.

And so yes, faith is a basic, but I feel like when you dive into it more and more, you recognize how much more you could learn from it and how important it is and so I really liked your Hall of Faith and I just needed to add this 38-year-old man. I think he's actually 40, but I needed to add him. 

Sher: Well, it's a great story and it does show that patience and just waiting and having that faith and that does take work in a lot of practice. And also I was thinking about, you know, what you said earlier about the Lord will reveal himself to you in some way and after going. Over the Hall of Faith list and thinking [00:21:00] about what you just said, I was going over my own list. Like what moments of faith have I received when I have felt those tender mercies from my Savior.

And the first one I landed on was the stroke I had and all the miracles that helped me get through that. And then I just kept going backwards, going. Back in time Thinking of all those little moments, those tender mercies, those little faith moments where I could fill God's love.

And I had that faith and that hope was in my heart. And I thought it was interesting because my list ended with something that was a little quieter. It wasn't a big moment. It was the feeling in my soul during those troubled times when things weren't going well, when things were going wrong, that I could still feel peace. And this made me reflect on that. Maybe we should cut ourselves some slack. Faith does precede miracles and great things, but maybe the great miracle is feeling peace and love and comfort in a troubled world. That is an incredible [00:22:00] miracle, and that is an incredible faith builder because there are so many people that don't have that right now. And it hurts my heart that so many people are choosing to live without this peace that is available to everyone.

 I wanna go back again to a few weeks ago. We talked about the Hebrew word emunah which is their word for faith. And that doesn't just mean belief. It also means steady, reliable, established. And it's also the same root word as amen and amen means so be it or it is true. So what this word is saying for faith is it is true. God is steady. So I am too, God is reliable, so I am too. and the comparison that I gave was, it's like the roots of a tree.

So storms are gonna come and we're gonna be whipped around and leaves are gonna fall off, and we might lose a couple of branches, but the roots aren't moving. They're strong and they're steady. So Muna are the roots. It's not the [00:23:00] absence of a storm, but it's what keeps you standing during the storm. So when we are in the shade, our faith is that knowledge that God is steady. And because God is steady, I am too. Now, wanna add one more word to this. And this is from Rabbi Daniel Lapin he said The root word of emunah is also omen. And in Hebrew, this means craftsman. So faith is not a passive word. It's something you do. It's a craft that we practice.

So a craftsman shows up and does their work, their craft every single day, even when they don't feel like it. If we look at it like that. Faith is our craft. When we don't feel like reading our scriptures, if faith is our craft, then we're gonna do it because we understand if we don't do it, we're not gonna get paid.

But when we make faith, our craft faith becomes the roots of our life that keeps us steady and grounded. [00:24:00] For me, as I was researching faith, this really helped me to understand how important faith is. It is a craft. It's something that we are gonna be working on our whole entire life because this is, our life's work is to gain faith. 

Cydni: I love that you added craftsmen. 'cause we are talking about reframing now, craftsmen. We're just like over here building a new you, new year, new you. 

Sher: That's the idea. 

Cydni: We challenge you to reframe how you see your faith, to become the craftsman of your own faith and let it shape your entire foundation and you could be steady and reliable in your faith.

Sher: This brings us to our final thoughts. The Spartans didn't know how their battle would end. The men and the women in Hebrews 11 didn't always know how their story would end either. They showed up, they trained, they trusted, and that's the practice of muna or faithfulness.

So please remember, you don't have to have it all [00:25:00] figured out. You don't have to feel strong every day. You just have to keep showing up to your prayers and reading your scriptures, and keeping your covenants keep working, keep building. God is steady and because he is, you are too. And remember that Jesus Christ has this hot mess. Thank goodness this is our prayer 

Cydni: from Cydni and Sher. I'm gonna have so much faith that you could edit. IANA didn't see the ball that helped her with the faith. She didn't see the ball.

Sher: She just ran. 

Cydni: She just ran. Run from your problems. Our message is to run from your problem. You're going to have problems, but you cannot run them. If you don't look at them, close your eyes, they'll go away. Is that our message today? 

Sher: Mm-hmm. You're saying that with a lot [00:26:00] of confidence. 

Cydni: That's because I don't have to prove it. We didn't have video footage back then. where did I put my notes? Could we go home? I'm feeling emotion today. It's probably 'cause I've been sick. I feel so much emotion share. I'm embarrassed. I'll be mad instead. I got so distracted by Rudy that I forgot it. We challenge you to make your, we challenge you to reframe, to go home. 

Sher: Thanks for joining us. 

Cydni: We're so glad you're here. Works Cited

All LDS talks and scriptures are sourced from LDS.org unless otherwise noted.

Bednar, David A. "That We Might 'Not Shrink.'" CES Devotional, University of Texas at 

Arlington, March 3, 2013. churchofjesuschrist.org. (Faith to not be healed)

Corbridge, Lawrence E. Stand Forever Series. Scripture Central, 2026. 

scripturecentral.org. (Story of the man at the pool, John 5)

Hebrews 11:1–2, 6. The Holy Bible, King James Version. (Hall of Faith)

John 5:2–9. The Holy Bible, King James Version. (The man at the pool of Bethesda)

Lapin, Daniel. "Faith Creates the Future." Rabbi Daniel Lapin. rabbidaniellapin.com. 

(Hebrew root of emunah — craftsman)

Lectures on Faith. Joseph Smith. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 

1835. (How faith comes into the world)

Matthew 14:28–31. The Holy Bible, King James Version. (Peter walking on water)

Psalms 46:1. The Holy Bible, King James Version.

Turley Bowcut, Tiffany. "Faith in the Lord, Faith in Ourselves." BYU Devotional 

Address, June 21, 2022. speeches.byu.edu. (Peter and the wind — you don't see 

wind)