Stepping into the Darkness

I pretty much think that any calling I have at any moment is the best calling I've ever had.  So it comes as no surprise that I love teaching Gospel Doctrine during Sunday School.  It's been a huge learning experience for me, trying to figure out how to inspire discussion about gospel topics as well as being completely prepared for that discussion to go any number of directions.  I've had better lessons, and not so great lessons, but from both, I learn just a little bit more about myself, about others, and about the gospel.  (I have to give huge props to the things I've learned teaching seminary over the last four years.  Those lessons have come in handy more times than I can count.)

After last Sunday's lesson about the Brother of Jared (in Ether) and my parallel fasting experience about faith, I was left thinking a lot about our decision to move.  

So as I moved into the next lesson for Sunday, I began to study the principle of hope.  The prophet Ether said, "Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God."

The definition of hope is an expectation of good things.

I hope the Michigan football team goes to the national championship.

I hope my children make good choices.

I hope I'm doing the right thing.

I hope I make it home during a snow storm (I've had a lot of hope in this arena lately).

The ultimate hope is in the Atonement, hoping that through what our Savior has done for us, and hoping that we can repent and be made clean, we can indeed live in a better world with our Heavenly Father someday.

My lesson was actually supposed to cover the three-legged stool that President Uchtdorf spoke of--hope, faith and charity--but the discussion stayed on hope for almost the entire 45 minutes.  It was beautiful, hearing what people had to say about hope in their own lives.

However, even though I was running five minutes over, I felt impressed to read a short story that Boyd K. Packer shared about faith.

"Some years ago I learned a lesson that I shall never forget.

I had been called as an Assistant to the Council of the Twelve, and we were to move to Salt Lake City and find an adequate and permanent home.  

A home was located that was ideally suited to our needs.  Elder Harold B. Lee came and looked it over very carefully and then counseled, 'By all means, you are to proceed.'

But there was no way we could proceed. I had just completed the course work on a doctor's degree and was writing the dissertation.  With the support of my wife and our eight children, all of the resources we could gather over the years had been spent on education.

By borrowing on our insurance, gathering every resource, we could barely get into the house, without sufficient left to even make the first monthly payment.

Brother Lee insisted, 'Go ahead. I know it is right.'

I was in deep turmoil because I had been counseled to do something I had never done before--to sign a contract without having the resources to meet the payments.

I was still not at peace, and then came the lesson.  Elder Lee said, 'Do you know what is wrong with you--you always want to see the end from the beginning.'

I replied quietly that I wanted to see at least a few steps ahead.  He answered by quoting from the sixth verse of the twelfth chapter of Ether: 'Wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for he receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.'

And then he added, 'My boy, you must learn to walk to the edge of the light and perhaps a few steps into the darkness, and you will find that the light will appear and move ahead of you.

And so it has--but only as we walked to the edge of the light.

I am confident that as we move to the edge of the light, like the cloud that led the Israelites, or like the star that led the wise men, the light will move ahead of us and we can do this work."

You could have heard a pin drop.  Obviously there were many who needed to hear this story, but no one more than me.

I wish I could go into all the details of what's going on in our lives right now, but let's just leave it at the fact that John and I are going to have to take a few steps into the darkness.  We have done so much praying and fasting and soul-searching about moving, and every answer is the same:  we need to move.  However, there is a huge stumbling block in the fact that we can't sell our house.  No joke, if our house sold tomorrow, we would move the next day.  We have no fear, no worries, no questions. But leaving a house that is worth almost a million dollars is not an easy decision.

Like I said, we have received answer after answer about this.  And yet, we still question if it's the right thing to do.

This week, as I was thinking back on the lesson (I always learn so much from what the class teaches me and from what the Spirit teaches me also), I knew that I had  received yet the same answer again.

But within days, I doubted.  And a phrase came to mind:  Help thou mine unbelief.

I knew that this phrase came from the New Testament, but I couldn't remember the exact story until Hannah looked it up while we were driving home in the car yesterday.

And one of the multitude answered and said, Master, I have brought unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit;

And wheresoever he taketh him, he teareth him, and he foameth, and gnasheth with his teeth, and pineth away: and I spake to thy disciples that they should cast him out; and they could not.

He answereth him, and saith, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him unto me.

And they brought him unto him: and when he saw him, straightway the spirit tare him; and he fell on the ground, and wallowed foaming.

And he asked his father, How long is it ago since this came unto him? And he said, Of a child.

 

And ofttimes it hath cast him into the fire, and into the waters, to destroy him: but if thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us.

Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.

 

And straightaway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. 

Johannah and I were both crying as we were flying down the road because of how the father represents all of us.  When I think about that father, he wanted nothing more than for his poor, ravaged son to be made well.  He showed great faith in first asking Jesus' disciples to help him (they couldn't) and then asking Jesus.  But it's his final statement that speaks to my heart at this moment.

I think that as he heard Jesus say that anything is possible as long as he would believe, he believed.

 

But I imagine there was a pause then, as he looked down  at his son and those proverbial doubts entered his mind again.  How could anyone save his son from this torment?  After all, he had been suffering since he was a child. No doubt, his grown son was writhing in his arms.  And instead of giving up, or losing this precious opportunity to have his son healed, he recognized that his faith wasn't strong enough and he asked instead for a blessing on himself.

He asked to be healed first, to be healed of his own doubt, so that through his faithfulness, his son could be healed.

Help thou mine unbelief.

And this is what I have been forced to ask my Heavenly Father for this week.  Help thou mine unbelief.  I have such hope for good things to come, and I know that anything is possible if I have enough faith.  I have already received answers, but in my limited understanding, they don't make sense.  I want to have that faith.  Please, help thou mine unbelief.

Over the next month, John and I will need to take those steps into the darkness.  It absolutely terrifies both of us, and yet we would be mocking God if we denied the answers he has given us.  I hope that as Elder Packer said, the light will move ahead of us, and we can do the work.