Teaching Faith

How does a mother teach her children faith?  I was blessed with someone in my life who introduced me to the principle of faith.  Now, over forty years later, I am stilling refining my understanding of it.  All I know if that my greatest blessings have been the fruits of faith. 

Son, Brett and his wife Missy, hold Family Home Evening each Monday Evening in an attempt to teach their children faith.

 

  My sister, 15 years my senior, taught me vital truths about the nature of God as I was approaching adolescence.   She began teaching me about the importance of studying scriptures and the words of prophets, key to building my faith.  On my birthday and Christmas, she gave me a doctrinal book to read and told me what book she wanted for those occasions.  She taught me how to study.  She explained that the careful student will look for blessings or attributes they want to acquire and then they should seek to find the laws upon which those blessings are based.  It became a type of treasure hunt for me.  My first experiment was to try to keep laws associated with specific blessings  surrounded Sabbath Day observance.  The blessings I sought were listed in Isaiah 58 which included an increased ability to hear direction from the Lord and increased light, which to me meant an increased ability to gain knowledge.  She had literally pointed out 16 blessings that Isaiah promised the faithful Sabbath Day observer.  She said that one of the blessings indicated one would be smarter."   I thought, how does a 13 year old keep the Sabbath Day Holy?  I decided that in addition to going to church, I could decline offers to go shopping on Sunday with my mother.  I could fast once a month for 24 hours and that I could make it more holy by  not doing my homework on Sundays.  After putting that principle to the test, I found myself doing much better in school.  I was on the High Honor Roll for the first time in my life.  I also felt an increasing ability to recognize promptings.   I literally became somewhat of a scholar receiving a host of academic accolades upon graduation from college.  But, much more importantly, I began to understand more fully the role of faith in both implementing commandments and realizing the subsequent fruits that obedience.   

 

It takes great faith to believe that the Lord can influence us in both big and small decisions we make in life.

 

Mormons subscribe to an incredible doctrine that separates them from many other churches.  It is the right of individuals to receive personal revelation.  It doesn’t just include divine guidance in one’s personal life and affairs, but knowledge about the mysteries of Godliness.    Joseph Smith taught, speaking of himself, "God has not revealed anything to Joseph, but what He will make known unto the Twelve, and even the least Saint may know all things as fast as he is able to bear them, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 149)." After receiving the revelation of the three degrees of glory he wrote a the end of section 76 of the Doctrine and Covenants:  “But great and marvelous are the works of the Lord, and the mysteries of his kingdom which he showed unto us. . . which he commanded us we should not write. . . neither is man capable to make them known, for they are only to be seen and understood by the power of the Holy Spirit, which God bestows on those who love him, and purify themselves before him.  To whom he grants this privilege of seeing and knowing for themselves; that through the power and manifestation of the Spirit, while in the flesh, they may be able to bear his presence in the world.”

Bringing a child into what seems like an uncertain world takes great faith. 

 

One of my first significant dreams was a simple one.  It was a man coming up to me and asking if I wanted to see an ancient oil lamp.  I was excited to view one, as the parable of the wise virgins was one of my favorite parables.   He showed it to me and I loved seeing it.  Then he asked me if I wanted to see a modern day lamp.  To be polite, though less excited about this, I said yes.   He showed me an identical lamp.  I considered this might be a significant dream.  As I pondered and prayed about that dream, I felt the Lord was telling me that the same kind of faith required by the ancients would be required of me.  I would, if I determined to be a faithful saint, be asked to pass tests of my faith that would require me to go forward, not knowing the end from the beginning.   I would have my own Abrahamic tests and  Red Seas to cross.  How could it be otherwise?  They came and are still coming and I thank God for them.