Trial of Our Faith

Faith is an incredible thing. During his ministry on earth, Christ promised “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove” (Mattew 17:20). In the Book of Mormon, the prophet Moroni explains “Yea, and even all they who wrought miracles wrought them by faith, even those who were before Christ and also those who were after” (Ether 12:16). But what is faith exactly?

As the prophet Moroni additionally explained, “And now I, Moroni, would speak somewhat concerning these things; I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith” (Ether 12:6). In this, Moroni points out two important principles: one that faith is a hope for things not seen, and two, our faith and hope is not confirmed until after it has been tested.

Faith need not start out big. In fact, it can start as a tentative hope. As mentioned earlier, an important principle that Moroni points out though, is that our faith must then be tested. It is through this testing that our faith can consequently grow. For example, we may start out with a tentative hope that there is a God. If we give up that hope after one day because God didn’t show himself to us, well, we did not develop much faith. But each day we continue in that hope that there is a God, even though we can’t see him, our faith, out of necessity, grows stronger and stronger. Through trials, whether they simply be one more day without a heavenly manifestation, or a tragic, life-altering event, our faith is tested. Each time we refuse to let it go however, it grows stronger as well.

Thankfully, in this we are not left entirely alone. We may not see Heavenly Father or Jesus Christ face-to-face in this life, but there is a third member of the Godhead, the Holy Ghost, which provides us with a witness in our minds and hearts that our faith is in something true.  Eventually one day though, we will stand before our Heavenly Father and our Savior Jesus Christ, and then we will no longer possess faith, but knowledge.

Until then, we must decide whether or not we will continue to build our faith. We must do this with the understanding that trials of our faith must come before the witness, and the eventual undeniable confirmation, of that which we hope for.