Episode #263 - Faith to Move Mountains

What does it take to develop faith to move mountains?

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Welcome to episode #263 – Faith to Move Mountains.  I am your host Damon Socha.  Faith to move mountains seems to characterize exactly what each of us aspires to be, full of quality faith.  We desire sufficient faith so that the gospel becomes easy to us.  Although even determined and qualified faith does not remove trials, it is more likely to increase them.  Faith requires testing on a regular basis and greater faith requires greater testing.  So as we increase in faith we may seem to run into all types of problems, concerns, issues and trials we could never imagine.  When we feel more devoted, that devotion needs purification and refining.  Only divinely engineered testing could ever provide a more pure and refined faith.  Yes our faith can be impure.  We can place faith in our fellow man that is misplaced.  We can have faith in money, power, and position.  None of which will turn out for our good.  We can even have muddled faith where we hold onto religious traditions and have no real value.  We often have misplaced faith in science and other fields of research that appear very convincing.  However, the key to mountain moving faith is the purification process of faith.  We must have spiritual experiences that augment our faith and then those experiences and faith must be exposed to tested to see what remains.  This process of augmented faith and then purification is the main source of what we would refer to as the faith to move mountains.

Faith does not come easy.  Faith requires us to reach out to God and to have spiritual experiences with him and the Savior.  Spiritual experiences rarely come on beaches and vacations.  Most often spiritual experiences come when we are humbled by circumstances in our lives.  When we are sufficiently humble the Lord can then provide the faith promoting experiences.   However, most often these faith supplying moments come with a price, a spiritual and mortal price.  They also come more often in small miracle moments rather than the larger more dramatic kind.  Faith is more often accumulated by drops of small experiences rather than by rivers of dramatic ones.  Faith also tends to grow in the fertile fields of deep and abiding trials.  Time and temperature seem to be factors in our faith development.  The deeper the trial and more poignant the feelings the more we seem to be able to turn our hearts and desires to our Father in Heaven.  In our deepest trials we find the greatest growth but that growth often comes of much pain and suffering.  Faith is an emotion born of rational thought and spiritual experiences.  Faith is a motivating force within our bodies.  It is the primary motivation for our actions and our beliefs.  Our faith is really the core of who we are.  It is our core spiritual nature.  The desires, motivations, love, concern and really any feeling emanating from the spiritual core is a part of our faith.

Now that faith might be impure in a sense in that it relies upon sources other than the Savior and the Father for guidance, direction and even action.  Some of us get angry quickly.  Some of us tend towards material goods.  Others still wander towards the direction of power and money.  These are all impure faith.  When we place our confidence in anything other than the Savior, we give that object our faith.  No object should have more confidence than the Savior, however we tend to place our confidence in earthly things because our mortal body likes it that way.  Our mortal body is more comfortable relying upon things it can see, physically feel, hear, or taste.  Placing our faith in something that is for the most part unseen goes contrary to what our mortal mind wants to believe.  The mortal mind is built for survival and procreation.  We have hardwired parts of our brain when we are surprised our entire body changes going into a fight or flight mode that routes our actions entirely by instinct.  We also have powerful chemistry causing us to desire to procreate.  Ultimately our body is built to follow the path of least resistance as far as its faith is concerned.  For the most part, the faith of our spirit and the faith of our mortal bodies consistently rub against one another creating heat and friction that can lead to confusion, pain and suffering.  We have competing faith which makes our motives impure at least in the sense we have conflicting desires.  Conflicting desires is one of the more difficult things our spirit bodies must face.  We have never had to face faith in this sense.  We have never had a mortal body motivating us to do things other than our spiritual motivations.  Anyone with mental and or emotional illness can tell you how powerful those mortal feelings can be and how overwhelming.  Even without mental or emotional illness our bodies possess strong desires.  Where we are weak spiritually we see our body take over and we will wander in the direction of our weakness.  When mental and emotional illness strike we become weakened beyond our normal spiritual weaknesses and we are forced to confront weaknesses where none had occurred before.  This is beyond frustrating for a spirit that is working to fill in those weakness gaps.  We go from just a few gaps to far too many to even address.  We go from capable and able to incapable and unable.

I have often wondered why the Lord does this.  Why weaken our strengths?  Don’t we have enough to do in our lives.  My answer is simple.  If we want to strengthen those things we see as strengths in our lives to the point of celestial habitation, then we need a method by which the Lord can take our strength and make it weak.  One of the main purposes of mental illness is to provide this pathway of learning.  The Lord can take our strengths which under normal circumstances would not change or improve and make them weaknesses for a time so that we can grow in character and nature and become more like the Savior.  Without our mental and emotional illness, parts of us would never be changed and purified and we would not qualify for exaltation.  So we are weakened that we might learn and be strengthen.

So what about faith then?  Must the Lord weaken our faith so that we come to him?  Must he provide knee buckling experiences so that we are sufficiently humble to make necessary changes to our heart?  It appears so and that almost everyone is required to pass through a series of testing, trial and learning that is often bitter, confusing, emotionally troubling and bewildering all at the same time.  We can truly feel lost but in some ways that feeling of lost is a good feeling.  It makes us yearn for something more, a higher order, a better place.  And often we find the Lord waiting for us when we are ready.

So faith comes in at least three phases and we are going to use Alma’s version of the seed and the tree.  Faith comes in the planting, the growing and the maintaining of the tree.  We have to start with a belief, a seed of faith.  Then we must test that belief.  During that testing we must experience spiritual awakenings that tell us about the seed and we will experience miracles.  This is our foundation of faith.  The root system.  Most often this type of faith is followed by hallowed experiences such as a healing, a flash of inspiration, a definite miracle that is difficult to refute.  These faith filled experiences lead us to the care of the tree and the maintenance of that tree.  Once that tree is sufficiently strong to stand on its own, our initial faith is tested and tried by the storms and the wind about the tree.  Sometimes we lose a limb, but it lightens the load and deepens the root.  Over time our faith becomes what is called unshakable with these experiences that strengthen the tree.  This is where our faith shifts into another higher plane.  Our faith begins to shift into such a deep belief and trust in God and the Savior that lack of a miracle does not shake it.  For instance, I have prayed that I might be healed from my current illness and as of yet no large miracle has taken place.  But that doesn’t shake my faith in my Savior because ultimately I know that he has a good reason and while I may not entirely know that reason it doesn’t matter.

So often our faith that is built by miracles comes to a point that the Savior needs to move you from the faith to see miracles to the faith not to see miracles.  We need a deeper and abiding faith that does not depend upon miracles and outward experiences.  However, when we begin to move from miracles to none, it can be an earth-shattering experience for many of us.  We can feel that the Savior has left us alone, that he no longer hears our voice.  Those feelings are actually the mortal body saying, “Hey I have relied on those miracles for this faith and now I am not seeing them.  Was my faith in vain?  Does he really exist or was it just coincidence?”  The mortal body begins to question every instance of faith brought about by miracles and in so doing it often creates a moment in time we call a faith crisis.  We are transitioning to a higher type of faith, one where the will of God, not our own, is preeminent. And these moments are unnerving to the soul and to the mortal body.  The mortal body relies upon evidence and when that evidence ceases so does the mortal faith.  It is so critical to understand this when you suffer with mental and emotional illnesses.  One of the things that these illness create is an emotional noise that often drowns out the spirit and spiritual feelings we have had with our miracles.  When we can’t feel those miracles, we tend to think they did not really occur.  At the very least we begin to question them.  When we come to this transition point of faith, we can become lost for a time not understanding why suddenly the Lord feels distance.  This walk in the darkness as it could be called is very important to our spiritual growth.  We must come to know that if we press forward in the darkness it will dissipate.  This walk in the darkness is required to come to know the third phase of faith.  We cannot fully understand how to walk without miracles until we understand how to walk in the darkness, trusting the Lord knows the path.  We cannot fully come to full faith without giving everything to him, placing it upon the alter.

These moments of confusion and darkness are intended to reorient our minds to greater knowledge and understanding.  They often increase our desire and our stress so that we seek out relief with greater desire and with a greater desire comes a greater witness.  The intent of these dark moments is actually quite simple.  It is to know that god is in charge and that by giving all to him we find our way in the darkness.  Walking in the darkness is what builds faith, as we take steps and see the path before us we find greater confidence in the Lord.  The problem is that darkness often feels like a faith crisis as it should.  Moments of darkness come upon us so that we will learn to trust the wisdom of our Father, even when that wisdom says that our prayers will not be answered in the way we want.

My mother-in-law passed away several years ago.  She really feared death and I think more the idea that she would be left out of all that is happening on earth.  She loved to be involved and the center of attention.  She was and is wonderful.  Her passing had to do with an enlarged artery that would take three operations to complete.  She did wonderfully through the first two but ended up with a stroke that paralyzed her entire left side on the third operation.  I have often thought about how the Lord could just have taken my mother-in-law to the other side and she wouldn’t have had any issues.  But he was merciful to her in that she lived another 6 weeks and was able to say goodbye to everyone before her passing.  I gave her a priesthood blessing that said she would be raised up like Jarius’s daughter in the New Testament.  I have often wondered why I said that.  I had thought she might be healed but that was not the case.  She was given as a gift six more weeks to settle her heart and her mind and that is what the Lord meant.  She shouldn’t have woken up from the stroke but she did.  She shouldn’t have been able to communicate but she did.  She shouldn’t have lived six more weeks but she did.  Were her prayers answered in the way she wanted.  No she didn’t want to die.  Wouldn’t even think about a will.  But the experience brought her closer to her Savior.  She walked in darkness for six weeks but that six weeks likely provided greater value to her than a good portion of her life.  So the gift was more than simply time, it was to provide a learning experience for her and those around her.  While the Lord could not grant her another several years, her time was up.  He could grant her 6 weeks to strengthen her faith and provide a meaningful lesson before she would enter paradise.

As we enter the trials of darkness, we should consider that the Lord has found us worthy to do so.  Entering into the faith trials is actually a blessing rather than a curse.  Although these trials do have a tendency to break us down to our very core.  Once the Lord knows that we have sufficient trust in him, he begins to break us down pruning the vine as it were.  Lopping off the parts that have grown but have no real value in the eternal scheme of things.  This lopping along with the darkness and limited spiritual revelation can and does cause what we call a faith crisis.  We generally don’t have a good opinion of faith crisis as the ones we hear about tend to lead out of the church.  But the reality of a faith crisis is that everyone who searches for eternal life will pass through several.

That does seem counterintuitive that we would be placed in a moment of crisis or several of them.  But the sifting is necessary.  One cannot enter eternal life without a few faith crisis’s in our lives.  We must be stripped down to core beliefs and then a change of nature can happen.  Change of heart and faith crisis are in many ways the same thing.  It is just that some individuals get stuck in the crisis not understanding why the Lord would place one in their lives.  They too often see the gospel as the soft, comforting and comfortable path with little to no resistance.  And that is simply not the gospel.  This is not a comfortable gospel where we learn instantaneously and never wonder if god exists.  This is a gospel of pruning and chastisement whose purpose is to make us like our Father and Savior.  All too often as individuals enter the path of “faith without miracles”, they are blindsided by this part of the gospel and without understanding they turn to other answers, wandering in paths that lead to strange roads and places.

This does not mean that miracles will not occur in our lives during this portion of the trials, actually they do regularly.  They are of just a different nature and require different spiritual eyes.  I personally have had quite a trial over the last several years and what I have noticed is just how spiritual I have felt given that walking in darkness has been a frequent occurrence and the Lord as of yet has not removed me from my walking in the darkness.  For many of us, this will last for years or even decades working its spiritual atoning power.  And this has been the case for me.  I suppose I am a slow learner or perhaps my weaknesses were far more embedded that I really would like to admit.  In any case, I have felt the Lord regularly urging me on in the darkness.  Telling me the path has not been erased and that I am doing just fine.  This isn’t a constant hand on the back type of spirit.  It as been more of a push when I have needed one.

Faith to move mountains is really not about developing faith to see and cause miracles to occur but to have sufficient faith to know when the Lord wants the mountain to move.  This only comes through the purification process of these darkened trials.  We can only come to move the mountain if we have sufficient confidence in the Lord to do so.  Confidence in the Lord only really comes one way and that is through difficult and deeply emotional trials.

However, along with that faith one must understand that spiritual nature plays a part in the revelation process.  When the Savior came down from the Mount of Transfiguration, he encountered his disciples disputing with a man who had a son with a terrible illness.  The disciples who had healed in the past could not heal the young man.  I was obvious that the dispute was over this healing power.  The Savior did not address the issue but put his focus on the young man and healed him and his Father’s broken faith because the disciples could not heal him.  The disciples then later asked why they could not heal him.  The Savior noted that this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.  Meaning our spiritual nature does affect our ability to cause miracles and revelation to occur.  Whether that is because the revelation is not given until we are ready or we cannot hear it, it does not matter.  When we are not pure we are partially cut off from some miracles.  This impurity is exactly what the Lord is attempting to cure in us when our faith crisis comes into full bloom.  He draws us into the darkness so that we can be purified by walking in the darkness with his aid.  He does this so that we learn full confidence and trust in him.  So yes our actions most certainly affect miracles and that is because our actions are the outward manifestation of our inward commitments.  Miracles are affected by obedience and that is important to understand.  But if we are doing our best, we should not be concerned with this idea that we must be perfect.  We can be good enough for the Lord to provide grace and mercy in our lives.  We may not be perfect but the Lord expects us to reach for purity in our intentions.  This purity is the purification of our motives.  As we purify our motives and spiritual nature we will more easily be able to see eye to eye with the Lord and if needed move mountains to aid in his cause.

Faith to move mountains comes as a gift with a price.  We could not have it without the atonement of the Savior and we could never be purified enough to have it in sufficient measure.  The gifts we are seeking are not simply given but taught through bitter trials and moments that move our hearts and minds to take notice.  Do you have faith to move mountains?  If so you have passed through the trials of Abraham, Issac, Jacob and the Savior.  For that is the only way that we can obtain it.  One thing I do know is that you have far more faith than you think you do.  Your valiant efforts before this life left you full of faith, you simply need to find it and most certainly the Savior will help.  May the Lord bless you.  Until next week do your part so that the Lord can do his.