Larry Barkdull

In my life, I have witnessed many extraordinary acts of faith. I would like to single out one. Last summer, Jason, my son-in-law, had a strong feeling that he needed to immediately move his family from Florida to Utah. The feeling drove him to the temple, where, for six hours, he sat in the celestial room pondering and praying. When finally he received a confirmation, he returned home and began to make calls to secure employment.

Jason’s window of opportunity was four weeks; in just twenty-eight days, he would have to find a new job, sell or rent his house, and move his family. If he failed, he would have to wait until the end of the coming semester or perhaps as long as a year.

Clearly, the move would be no small feat—not in this economy. Jobs are scarce, particularly for teachers in Jason’s field. To compound the challenge, he would have to apply for a job long distance without the advantage of a face-to-face interview. Then there was the obstacle of selling the family home during a recession. The home was located in a depressed area of Florida, where few houses had moved for several years and unsold real estate inventory was high.

Undeterred, Jason began to make calls; he contacted everybody he knew, whether he thought they were in a position to help him find a job or not.

Imagine what Jason’s wife (Katie) was thinking while she watched her husband make plans to move the family. She went to her knees, and while pouring out her heart, she received an impression: Support your husband and his answer. Dutifully, she got up and went to work. “If we’re leaving in four weeks” she thought, “we had better get ready.” And that is precisely what she did! She began sorting through toys, clothes and other belongings in an effort to trim down to the bare essentials.

By the end of the third week, Jason had found no job opportunities in Utah. Moments like these are often when our faith folds, but Jason and Katie held firm. Then Monday morning, out of the blue, Jason received two employment opportunity calls. He interviewed by phone. Both potential employers said they would let him know by Thursday. After the interviews, Jason and Katie acted again in faith by boxing up their remaining belongings, selling their second car and extra furniture, and arranging for a moving truck.

On Wednesday, Jason was offered both jobs, plus a part-time adjunct professor position at BYU. He chose the job in Utah Valley and the BYU position. That same night, a single sister in their ward appeared on their doorstep asking if she could rent their house. On Friday, the moving truck loaded their belongings, and on Saturday, Jason, Katie and their three children headed for Utah. The following Monday, Jason began work in his new positions.

More than Belief

What is this faith, which Joseph Smith called the first principle of action and power?[i] A common answer is faith is a strong belief. Respectfully, I disagree. According to President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., faith is “an intelligent force,” and belief is a means by which we access that force. “Faith is not trust,” he said, “faith is a living, and I think an intelligent, force, by which God himself performs his work.”[ii]

On a later occasion, President Clark repeated his definition of faith and added a profound observation:

As I think about faith, this principle of power, I am obliged to believe that it is an intelligent force. Of what kind, I do not know. But it is superior to and overrules all other forces of which we know.[iii]

President Boyd K. Packer concurred, describing faith this way:

There are two kinds of faith. One of them functions ordinarily in the life of every soul. It is the kind of faith born by experience; it gives us certainty that a new day will dawn, that spring will come, that growth will take place. It is the kind of faith that relates us with confidence to that which is scheduled to happen….

            There is another kind of faith, rare indeed. This is the kind of faith that causes things to happen. It is the kind of faith that is worthy and prepared and unyielding, and it calls forth things that otherwise would not be. It is the kind of faith that moves people. It is the kind of faith that sometimes moves things. Few men possess it. It comes by gradual growth. It is a marvelous, even a transcendent, power, a power as real and as invisible as electricity. Directed and channeled, it has great effect….

            In a world filled with skepticism and doubt, the expression “seeing is believing” promotes the attitude, “You show me, and I will believe.” We want all of the proof and all of the evidence first. It seems hard to take things on faith.

            When will we learn that in spiritual things it works the other way about–that believing is seeing?[iv]

Notice the descriptive phrases of these two prophets:

• a living…intelligent force by which God himself performs His work
• “superior to and overrules all other forces of which we know”
• “causes things to happen”
• “calls forth things that otherwise would not be”
• “moves people”
• “moves things”
• “a marvelous, even a transcendent, power, a power as real and as invisible as electricity”

Harnessing the Power of This Intelligent Force

That faith is “an intelligent force” “as real and as invisible as electricity” shatters the notion that faith is merely strong belief. Faith is so much more than “the power of positive thinking or a great exertion of emotion.”[v]

Imagine faith as electricity and belief as the electrical plug that taps into that power. Belief would motivate you to take the action of plugging in to access the power of electricity. Then voila!—all the lights would go on! Energy would surge! Suddenly, you would have power to do or create things!

Clearly, belief is essential to connect to the intelligent force of faith: “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.”[vi] The opposite is true of unbelief:

And the reason why [God] ceaseth to do miracles among the children of men is because that they dwindle in unbelief, and depart from the right way, and know not the God in whom they should trust. Behold, I say unto you that whoso believeth in Christ, doubting nothing, whatsoever he shall ask the Father in the name of Christ it shall be granted him; and this promise is unto all, even unto the ends of the earth.[vii]

Joseph Smith made another observation about faith. He taught that the mind of Man is the mechanism that accesses and harnesses this intelligent force. The mind is the organ of creation, and words, he said, are what set faith in motion. Thoughts and words–specifically authoritative words—unleash faith’s tremendous power.

What are we to understand by a man’s working by faith? We answer–we understand that when a man works by faith he works by mental exertion instead of physical force. It is by words, instead of exerting his physical powers, with which every being works when he works by faith.[viii]

God has constructed the mind of Man to mimic His own: “the development of the mind of man…is after the order of the mind of God.”[ix] That is, God has fashioned Man’s mind to be the organ that contemplates and initiates all creation. The mind has the capacity to envision something that does not yet physically exist, then tap into the power of faith and cause things to manifest. This Godlike ability is a creative phenomenon of the mind that is often called “seeing with the eye of faith.”[x] The mind can “[look] forward with an eye of faith to [harvest] the fruit thereof.”[xi]

Hope is another word that describes the mind’s capability to envision and create. Alma explained the connection between hope, faith and creation: “And now as I said concerning faith–faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.”[xii]

The mind of Man, blessed with the DNA of Deity, is able of envisioning futuristic, substantive things. The mind sees through eyes of hope; it gathers evidence about things not yet visible[xiii] that reside in Man’s future. The mind’s power to envision or to foresee allows Man to garner courage to declare with words what he hopes for and sees in his mind’s eye. But the use of words implies more than a wish or an observation of the future. The use of words must contemplate taking a stand and making a promise; that is, Man must place his integrity on the line that he will succeed. “I will go and do,” Nephi declared.[xiv]

Thus begins the process of creation. The intelligent force of faith perceives then responds to the mind’s vision and Man’s declaration. Like plugging into an electrical socket, faith infuses energy into the vision to begin the process of making the declared thought a reality. Then things and people commence to move, resources start to gather, and the creation begins to take shape. The Gods have perfected the process. Faith “is the principle by which Jehovah works, and through which he exercises power over all temporal as well as eternal things.”[xv] And so can faith become for us.

Jason and Katie envisioned the future as vividly as if they were recalling a memory, and that future recollection gave them power to act in the present and cause their future to manifest in the physical world. Faith, someone said, is acting as if you had knowledge. Jason and Katie acted as if they had knowledge of the future, and by so doing, they tapped into the power of the intelligent force of faith.

Mormon said it this way: “Now this was the faith of these of whom I have spoken;…their minds are firm, and they do put their trust in God continually.”[xvi] Such people have “power given them to do all things by faith.”[xvii]

Creation Gone Awry

However, because there is an “opposition in all things,”[xviii] faith, as it is defined as an intelligent force, can work against us. This idea might seem counterintuitive, but it is nevertheless true. No child of God can escape the fact that his/her mind is a creative organ patterned after the mind of God. By its construction, the mind is always creating its present and future realities. Every thought—absolutely every good and bad thought—that issues forth from the mind of Man initiates a respective creation. “As [a man] thinketh in his heart, so is he.”[xix] Understanding that negative thoughts create destructive realities, King Benjamin warned,

But this much I can tell you, that if ye do not watch yourselves, and your thoughts, and your words, and your deeds, and observe the commandments of God, and continue in the faith of what ye have heard concerning the coming of our Lord, even unto the end of your lives, ye must perish. And now, O man, remember, and perish not.[xx]

As children of God, we are independent agents, endowed with the ability to choose the ways we think, speak and act. Consequently, substantially everything that exists in our world is of our own creation. We are not always as victimized as we would believe. As creators, we are responsible for our personal reality. Whether we like it or not, the thoughts we think and the words we say instantaneously plug into the intelligent force of faith and commence a creative process that will manifest physically, unless we counter with new thoughts and new words.

Little wonder, then, that “we shall be judged by our thoughts, our words and our deeds.”[xxi] Invariably, they form our reality. Of the mind’s ability to create both good and bad realities, Elder Orson Hyde taught:

Let the mind be concentrated, and it possesses almighty power. It is the agent of the Almighty clothed with mortal tabernacles, and we must learn to discipline it, and bring it to bear on one point, and not allow the Devil to interfere and confuse it, nor divert it from the great object we have in view…. If a person trains his mind to walk in the spirit, and brings his whole mind to bear upon its operations, and upon the principles of faith which are calculated to put him in possession of the power of God, how much greater will be his facilities for obtaining knowledge than those which any natural man possesses.[xxii]

Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t–you’re right.”

Hope and Faith

Faith typically is accessed by a desire or hope: “If there must be faith there must also be hope.”[xxiii]  Like a seed, hope embeds in our soul when we are introduced to something that piques our interest. “Faith cometh by hearing.”[xxiv] The seed of hope is discernable, almost tangible, and we react favorably to it. Alma described the sensation as “delicious.”[xxv]

When we nourish the seed with even a “particle of faith,” it has power to grow into a great tree that bears abundant fruit. Therefore, Alma encouraged us to immediately embrace the tiny seed of hope or desire: “yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you.”[xxvi]

As the tiny seedling takes root in the soul, we sense beneath the surface subtle vibrations of new life. These “swelling motions”[xxvii] cause our vision of a bounteous harvest to increase. The vision motivates us to nurture the seed and stay the course of hope. As time passes, our vision of future success becomes more real and detailed. Although we “hope for things which are not seen,” in a remarkable way, we can see them; they “are true.”[xxviii] “Believing is seeing![xxix]

Now that the creative process is fully engaged, the only way that the creation will fail is if we unplug from the intelligent force of faith and interrupt the flow of energy. Alma warned,

But if ye neglect the tree, and take no thought for its nourishment, behold it will not get any root; and when the heat of the sun cometh and scorcheth it, because it hath no root it withers away, and ye pluck it up and cast it out.

Now, this is not because the seed was not good, neither is it because the fruit thereof would not be desirable; but it is because your ground is barren, and ye will not nourish the tree, therefore ye cannot have the fruit thereof.

And thus, if ye will not nourish the word, looking forward with an eye of faith to the fruit thereof, ye can never pluck of the fruit of the tree of life.[xxx]

Declarations, Envisioning and Emotionalizing

Hope-filled thoughts and hope-filled declarations are powerful creative devices. Reggie Brooks, a motivational speaker, who teaches the power of the mind, points to studies that demonstrate exponential creative power when declarations are coupled with envisioning and emotionalizing.[xxxi] Assuming that the seed of hope is now planted in your soul, Brooks lists the following three steps:

1. Declare. If you declare your goal—take a stand and make a vow to succeed–you have a 10% chance that your goal will manifest, even if you do nothing but make the declaration. If you precede your declaration by expressing gratitude and making a formal request of God, the chance for success increases.
2. Envision. Then if you focus your attention so that you envision your goal—that is, if you envision your goal with an “eye of faith” —you have a 55% chance that your goal will manifest, even if you do nothing but declare and envision. The act of “seeing” is using your imagination to visualize the future and view “things which are [yet] not seen, which are true.”[xxxii]
3. Emotionalize. Finally, if you engage your other senses to emotionalize your goal, you have a 100% chance that you will achieve it. Beyond envisioning your futuristic goal, you are also imagining what you experience by tasting it, touching it, smelling it and hearing it. In other words, you are making your goal so real that you will recognize it when it becomes a physical reality. Alma the Younger described emotionalizing this way: “Behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts; and when you feel these swelling motions, ye will begin to say within yourselves–It must needs be that this is a good seed…for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me.”[xxxiii] Of course, emotionalizing suggests engaging the entire soul to take action to achieve your goal; otherwise, the exercise is futile, because “faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.”[xxxiv]

Father Alma laced his description of future judgment with language of visualizing and emotionalizing: “Do you look forward with an eye of faith… I say unto you, can you imagine to yourselves that ye hear the voice of the Lord…. Or do ye imagine to yourselves that ye can lie unto the Lord…. Or otherwise, can ye imagine yourselves brought before the tribunal of God….I say unto you, can ye look up to God at that day with a pure heart and clean hands? I say unto you, can you look up, having the image of God engraven upon your countenances? I say unto you, can ye think…? …. how will any of you feel…?[xxxv]

Consider how God and prophets have learned to harness the power of faith with thoughts and words. “There is nothing that the Lord thy God shall take in his heart to do but what he will do it.”[xxxvi]  “God said, ‘Let there be light: and there was light.’ Joshua spake, and the great lights which God had created stood still. Elijah commanded, and the heavens were stayed for the space of three years and six months, so that it did not rain…. All this was done by faith…. Faith, then, works by words; and with [words] its mightiest works have been, and will be, performed.”[xxxvii]

But negative results can also take shape around declaring, envisioning and emotionalizing.

• Declare. If you declare negative things, and if you compound those negative declarations with murmuring, the chances are good that a negative reality will begin to form up.
• Envision. Then if you envision a negative future and you allow your imagination to migrate to dark places, the chances of manifesting a negative future increase almost six-fold.
• Emotionalize. Finally, if you add negative emotional responses to your negative declarations and negative imaginings, in other words, if you succumb to depression or become despondent, critical or cynical, or if you emotionalize the present or future with any number of negative emotional patterns, you have a 100% chance of creating a nightmare.

The intelligent force of faith is impartial; it will create whatever you declare, envision and emotionalize. It has no choice. Like electricity, it can be used to create the good and bad conceived in the mind of the creator. The intelligent force of faith is the indiscriminant tool of the creative mind of Man.

Planting a Garden

As an example of the creative power of faith, let’s imagine that you desire to plant a garden. How would you plug into the intelligent force of faith to make your desire a reality?

1. Declare your hope or desire. “I am going to plant a garden.”
2. Envision what the garden will look like at every stage. “I can imagine in my mind the red tomatoes, the tall yellow corn, the plump butternut squash, and the rows of green beans and crimson radishes.
3. Emotionalize the results; involve all the senses. “I can imagine rising early on an August morning when the dew glistens on my tall tomato plants. I reach for one and hear the snap as I pluck it from the vine. I squeeze it gently to test its ripeness. Then I lift it to my nose and smell its distinct aroma. I take a tiny taste. It is both tart and delicious. The meat is crab-red and firm. The flavor invites me to take another generous bite, and as I do so, juice spills onto my chin.”
4. Move toward your desire and vision. “I’m going to plant my garden!” And surely, the garden will take shape, just as you have declared, envisioned, and sensed. Mormon said: “According to their faith, it was done unto them.”[xxxviii]

Following this pattern gives us confidence to work by the power of faith. But we “don’t go out and try to move mountains” right away, taught Bruce R. McConkie. Rather, we “start in a small degree to do the things that [we] need to do…to get what [we] ought to have temporally and spiritually…and by degrees [our] power or influence will increase until eventually, in this world or the next, [we] will say to the Mt. Zerins [see Ether 12:30] in [our] life ‘Be thou removed,’ {We] will say to whatever encumbers [our] course of eternal progress, ‘Depart,’ and it will be so.’”[xxxix] Such is the undiscovered power of faith.

Faith and the Name of Jesus Christ

If faith “works by words,”[xl] as Joseph Smith taught, no words carry more weight than Jesus Christ. Thus, we are instructed to not only believe in Him,[xli] but also in His name.[xlii]

When we enter into the new and everlasting covenant through baptism, we begin the process of taking upon ourselves the name of Jesus Christ. Worthy men take upon themselves the name of Jesus Christ again when they are ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood.[xliii] Both men and women take upon themselves the name of Jesus Christ yet again and more fully in the temple.[xliv]

The new and everlasting covenant allows us the right to yoke to Jesus and make our requests and declarations in His name. When, with reverent permission, we invoke the authoritative words of Jesus Christ, we tap into the great intelligent force of faith and creation ensues, which has always been the pattern.

Imagine receiving an impression from the Holy Ghost, not as “a perfect knowledge of things,”[xlv] but rather as a seed of an idea. You desire to infuse the power of faith into the seed to help it grow. You begin by expressing gratitude for what you have received, then you ask to see the future of the seed through your mind’s eye of faith. The envisioning process, as guided by the Holy Ghost, is called prophecy. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”[xlvi]Now you ask for permission to invoke the name of Jesus Christ, then you boldly declare in the name of Jesus Christ what you see and your intention to pursue a course of action that will manifest your vision. And most certainly, the future we have contemplated will form up.

Ours is the covenantal right to use the same “word of God”—Jesus Christ—that the “Word of God”[xlvii] employed to create everything in the immense sidereal heavens. “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God.”[xlviii] The power of faith when unleashed by the word of God is immeasurable. The Book of Mormon prophet, Jacob, exulted that brethren in his day were able to “command in the name of Jesus and the very trees obey[ed them].”[xlix] If our purpose is based on truth, as taught us by the Holy Ghost, the elements must obey! “God spake, chaos heard, and worlds came into order by reason of the faith there was in him. So with man also.”[l]

Faith and Other Authoritative Words

There are other authoritative words that access the intelligent force of faith, which, when coupled with the name of Jesus Christ, are matchless in power. We learn these words and use them only in holy temples. Consider the power that Enoch achieved when he tapped into the force of faith by means of authoritative words:

And so great was the faith of Enoch that he led the people of God, and their enemies came to battle against them; and he spake the word of the Lord, and the earth trembled, and the mountains fled, even according to his command; and the rivers of water were turned out of their course; and the roar of the lions was heard out of the wilderness; and all nations feared greatly, so powerful was the word of Enoch, and so great was the power of the language which God had given him.[li]

Faith—The Tool of the Gods

Faith is the intelligent force by which the Gods work. Consequently, because we are children of and apprentices to God, we are placed in this mortal experience, which is designed to help us discover and live by the principles that govern faith. When we find ourselves lacking, cognizant of the fact that faith is the only power that can change our circumstances or create another reality, we appeal to God to access His greater level of faith: “Lord, I believe. Help thou my unbelief.”[lii]

The request for divine intervention summons grace, the enabling power to become more than we are and receive more than we have. When grace adds faith to ours, the resulting faith is sufficient to set in motion a creative process that will result in a miracle.

“Earth life,” wrote Catherine Thomas, “has been configured in such a way as to present each person with the dilemmas he particularly needs in order to grow in the power of Faith. The Lord has set out to perfect us and, since we don’t develop in a vacuum, He provides a laboratory with problems to work on. Through the solving of problems with the Lord’s help, a person takes on the powers and attributes of God Himself: ‘When men begin to live by faith they begin to draw near to God; and when faith is perfected, they are like him.’”[liii]

Conclusion

God has endowed us with a mind like His own. This organ of creation has but to think a positive or negative thought and it immediately connects to the intelligent force called faith, which permeates the universe. When we speak words in the form of a declaration or a promise, we add fuel to faith’s power, and when, by permission, we speak authoritative words, which are the words that formed every creation, we energize the power of faith so that it becomes immense. Finally, when we emotionalize our thoughts and declarations and if our goal is based on truth, our power in faith is immeasurable.

Elder Gene R. Cook wrote: “All you need to be a God is in you right now. Your job is to take those crude elements within you and refine them.”… In other words, the Lord is saying, ‘Take the reins. Take charge under the direction of my Spirit. Don’t wait for someone to tell you everything to do.’ … You prevail over people, things, and situations by your faith.”[liv]

If we stay the course, substantially every thought that we think or see in our mind’s eye and each declaration that we make, will find fruition. The Lord declared of the Man of faith,  “Wherefore, he is possessor of all things; for all things are subject unto him, both in heaven and on the earth, the life and the light, the Spirit and the power, sent forth by the will of the Father through Jesus Christ, his Son.”[lv]

Such is the power of the glorious, intelligent force of faith.

Moroni chose to complete the Book of Mormon with a plea that we not deny the power and gifts of God. Miracles are around us every day, if we are observant. Here are two stories that a friend shared with me about God’s power and gifts.

The Lord’s Lost-and-Found Department

I am a seminary teacher. In order to complete a project before class started, I awoke at 4:15 a.m. with the intention of heading to the seminary building early. As I walked past the dresser, I discovered that my keys to the building were not there. I searched the logical places, and then the less likely ones, but without success. I dared not call another teacher at this hour to borrow his keys.

I suddenly realized that there was only one thing to do. I knelt and explained my need to my Father in Heaven. A question cam into my mind: “How can I let the Lord know that I believe he will help me find the keys?”

I stood up, showered, shaved, dressed in my suit, filled my briefcase, and knelt down again. I had prepared in every way I could to receive the answer I needed.

Just as I began my prayer, a memory entered my mind. I saw myself the night before running across the backyard in the darkness. I had stepped in a hole and had fallen to the ground. “Thank you, Father,” I said. I went to the backyard, picked up the keys from where they had slipped from my pocket, and went to work.

My mother had taught me how to access the Lord’s Lost and Found Department. I remember staring into the white froth of the river as the water tumbled over the rocks and debris as it raced under the bridge. Tears gathered in the corners of my eyes and slid down my face and into the torrent below. I had been looking down into the river and suddenly my glasses were gone.

Now I stared through amblyopia and myopia into the plunging swirl, but there was nothing. I scrambled down the bank and into the water, bending, reaching, feeling, bracing my nine-year-old body against the current. The churning water made it impossible to see anything. My blind groping was useless. The glasses were gone.

Finally I climbed out and stood there a moment dripping, gathering courage to go home and tell my parents that my carelessness would once again cost them money. Forty minutes later, Mother and I stood together where I had stood alone. “Did you see where they fell?” she asked.

I pointed to a spot, a white whirlpool of water, stones and sticks. I was sobbing now, surrendering to my emotions. I hated to be in trouble, and I was in trouble a lot. I hated to lose things, and I lost things all the time. Dad worked so hard to support his family. Our budget wasn’t built to withstand my constant assaults.

“Did you pray?” Mother asked.

I had not. I knew the words and the formalities of prayer; I said them regularly, but I did not expect answers.

“Come on,” she said. “Hold my hand. Will you ask Heavenly Father to help us?”

I took her hand as I looked at her. Her eyes were already closed, and in my heart a quiet voice whispered, “She gets answers.” I felt something small and warm moving in me, drying up the sadness. I bowed my head and squeezed my eyes shut.

“Heavenly Father, I lost my glasses. Daddy can’t afford new ones and I need ‘em to see good and do better in school. Will you please help us find them? Name of Jesus, Amen.”

Mom gave me a pat on the bottom and I climbed down the bank again and waded into the water to the spot where the glasses had disappeared. I plunged in my hand and grasped a handful of sticks. After a moment’s hesitation, I drew them from the water and examined them. My glasses were there, secured by the temple piece among the twigs and rubble.

The small, warm thing in me grew then, as I stood in the water. It grew and became a shining certainty: “God hears; God answers.”

The lesson stuck. Some years later, when my friend was first married, he and his wife experienced a financial crisis that could only be solved by an all-loving, all-powerful God who foresees and prepares for our futures.

Fifty Dollars

When my wife and I were courting, we often talked about trusting the Lord. Finances, we knew would be a problem. We were students and poor, and we had agreed to not postpone having children.

“Sweetheart,” I asked one Sunday morning, “what will we do if the time comes when we simply do not have enough to get by?”

“We’ll trust the Lord,” she said.

“How will we demonstrate that kind of trust?”

“What does your mother do when she is in financial difficulty? Does she pay less tithes and offerings?”

“No, she pays more.”

“We’ll do something like that. We’ll take whatever we have, donate it to the Lord, tell him our needs, and trust him.”

Two years went by. We had a baby and another was on the way. Medical bills and car repairs had left us with fourteen dollars in the bank. We needed fifty. The next paycheck was a week and a half away.

We talked at the kitchen table on Saturday afternoon. “Do you remember what we decided when we were dating?” my wife asked me.

I remembered. But that was talk. Now we were down to our last fourteen dollars with no prospect of more for ten days.

“We made a covenant,” she continued. “The Lord has never let us down and he won’t now.”

We knelt and told the Lord we needed fifty and that we trusted him.

Before we left for sacrament meeting, we knelt in prayer and told the Lord that we needed fifty dollars and that we trusted him. Then we wrote a check for fourteen dollars, emptying our bank account, and gave our offering to the bishop.

 When we returned to our apartment after church, the phone was ringing. It was my mother. We visited for a moment then she asked, “Do you remember in elementary school when you used to take a quarter to school and buy Savings Bonds?”

 I had a vague recollection. It had been a long time.

 “I was in the basement this morning,” she continued, “and I opened an old box. I saw an envelope with two bonds that you bought in 1954 and 1955.”

 “What denomination are they?” I asked. A small, warm thing began to stir within me.

 “They are $25-dollar bonds,” she said. “They are past maturity, so they must be worth a little more than fifty dollars.”

 Did the Lord know when I was in the second grade that one day my wife and I would need fifty dollars? Of course he did.

Elder Neal A. Maxwell was fond of reminding us that God is in the details of our lives. His statement was not a wish; it was a fact.

The journey through the Lord’s Wilderness is like what Elder Maxwell called “the trek of treks.”[i] The scriptures are filled with accounts of spiritual journeys. If we were to outline them, we would see that they follow the sequence of the Beatitudes, which are the principles of blessedness.[ii]

Before we discuss this outline, however, let us first note that in this world, we encounter two wilderness experiences.

The Wilderness of Sin

The first wilderness is the wilderness of sin. We are thrust into this wilderness by our own poor choices. When we have suffered enough, we cry to the Lord for deliverance, and he responds. To get out of the wilderness of sin, we must be delivered. That deliverance hinges on our willingness to make or renew a covenant—the new and everlasting covenant—to cease sinning, and to allow Jesus to work with us and change our natures.

This transformation requires refining, molding and perfecting; therefore, we voluntarily yield to the Lord, ask him to remove us from the wilderness of sin, and allow him to drive us into another wilderness where we can be changed and perfected. This second wilderness is called the Lord’s Wilderness.

The Lord’s Wilderness

We are faced with at least two facts when we exit Babylon and enter the Lord’s wilderness: (1) In choosing Zion, we become enemies of Babylon. Now Babylon will no longer support us. We can expect an all-out war, and attacks might be waged against our finances, our health, and our relationships. (2) Babylon is destined to fall. If we have anchored our safety and security there, we will become part of the fallout. Hence, a curse is placed upon wilderness travelers who attempt to place their trust in the “arm of flesh” rather than trusting in the arm of the Lord.

The transition from Babylon to Zion is daunting and can be frightening. We might ask ourselves, “What will become of us if we attempt to step away from Babylon and fully embrace the laws and principles of Zion?” The answer is always the same: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.”[iii] Moreover, the guarantees of safety and security are embedded in the new and everlasting covenant: the Lord promises to support us, sustain us, stand beside us, and keep us safe. Enoch said, “Surely Zion [the people] shall dwell in safety forever.”[iv]

Safe in the Covenant, we no longer need worry as we did in Babylon. What Jesus said to his apostles could apply to anyone in the Covenant: “Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.”[v] President Kimball said,

What are we to fear when the Lord is with us? Can we not take the Lord at his word and exercise a particle of faith in him? Our assignment is affirmative: to forsake the things of the world as ends in themselves; to leave off idolatry and press forward in faith; to carry the gospel to our enemies, that they might no longer be our enemies. We must leave off the worship of modern-day idols and a reliance on the ‘arm of flesh,’ for the Lord has said to the world in our day, ‘I will not spare any that remain in Babylon.’[vi]

The Beatitudes Outline the Journey through the Lord’s Wilderness

That said, let us compare the Beatitudes (principles of blessedness) with the spiritual journey to Zion that we now find ourselves pursuing.

1. Poor in Spirit. We recognize that we are strangers here, lacking in almost everything of eternal value, poor spiritually, and we want to go home to our “promised land.”
2. Mourn. We are sorry for our sins and mourn for our fallen natures and poor choices. We want to be reconciled to God and come home to him. Moreover, the road to our promised land that leads through the Lord’s wilderness is a harsh environment. We mourn because of the difficulties of the journey and our foreign and inhospitable surroundings.
3. Meek. Along the way, we encounter frequent and essential tests of obedience, which we can only survive if we become very humble, which invites the Spirit.
4. Hungering and Thirsting for Righteousness. We discover that only the principles of righteousness will allow us safety and security in the Lord’s Wilderness. Therefore, famished and parched, we seek spiritual food and drink from the Lord, who is our only Hope and our only Provider. When we cry out to him, the Lord miraculously provides manna and water on an as-needed basis. By such treatment, we come to realize that we are totally dependent upon him, which further causes us to become humble and continually prayerful. The net result is that we are now in a position to be fed, guided and protected by the Lord in His wilderness.
5. Mercy. The frequent difficulties of the wilderness cause us to yearn for the Lord’s mercy and pity. When we cry out to God, we discover that he is very merciful. We also discover that receiving mercy and pity is linked to our extending mercy and pity to others. Therefore, in the wilderness, we learn to emulate the Lord. When we do, he leads us to a place(s) of respite or our personal “Bountiful.” Bountiful is a temple location, a place of peace where we can regroup and prepare for the last leg of our journey, the ultimate test of faith in which we cross the formidable ocean.

In Bountiful, we ascend the mount (temple) to receive greater light and truth. Now our faith must increase exponentially if we are to make the hardest part of our journey. This infusion of light, truth and faith purifies us and changes our hearts. Now we are ready to be covered by grace, which is exemplified by the boat, barge or ark – a covering, which is a word associated with the Atonement.  As we build our vessel, we encounter further tests of faith, hope and charity, which challenge and change our nature so that when we finally launch on the sea, which is a place of intense storms and chaos, we are pure in heart, covered by protection, and completely safe. The Lord’s mercy is the only way to traverse the ocean.

1. Pure in Heart. When we arrive in our promised land, we arrive completely changed. We now have a relationship with God that cannot be questioned. We have become like him. We know and love him so well that the only remaining step in our journey is to see him. Indeed, the end of the journey through the Lord’s Wilderness is to come into the presence of God. Only the pure in heart can see God.
2. Peace or peacemaker. We arrive in the promised land. We are home at last. We are at peace.[vii]

The Importance of the Temple

The journey to through the Lord’s Wilderness is both spiritual and physical; in neither sense can it be made without the Lord’s help. Often, we find ourselves in an impossible situation. Having done all we can do, we survey our environment, consider our options, tally our abilities then realize our helplessness, incompetency and inadequacy. Our only choice is to look upward to God.

When Nephi arrived in Bountiful and could do no more or go no further, he received the word of the Lord to go up into the mount to receive more light and truth. Of course, the mount is symbolic of the temple: The Mountain of the Lord’s House.[viii] After Nephi climbed up into the mount, he cried unto the Lord, and “the Lord spake unto [him], saying: Thou shalt construct a ship, after the manner which I shall show thee, that I may carry thy people across these waters.”[ix] Note the word “I.”

The Lord himself would reveal the exact construction so that the vessel could withstand the beating of the waves and the violence of the storms. Moreover, if Nephi was willing to create the ship as the Lord revealed, the Lord said that he would take responsibility to carry the family safely to the promised land.

Likewise, when we wilderness travelers come to a dead end and face an ocean that lies between us and our destination, we must get ourselves up into the mount of God, where we will receive further light and knowledge about how to construct a vessel to convey us safely to our blessings in Zion. In that holy setting, God will reveal marvelous things that will transcend our experience and challenge our paradigms. The instruction might lead us into uncharted territory that will press us to quickly learn skills that approximate Nephi’s having to learn to construct a ship with no prior experience.

Deliverance

We must keep in mind that the journey to the promised land (Zion) is unique to every traveler, but the principles are the same. One commonality is that we will be delivered multiple times to solidify our relationship with the Deliverer. Then, to arrive in the promised land, we will experience a massive deliverance that might approximate crossing the Jordan River on dry ground or traversing the ocean in an ark, barge or ship.

That is, we will be delivered into the promised land by passing through the water. Of course, the symbolism does not escape us: Christ is the living water and baptism is entrance into the new and everlasting covenant.

Our arrival completely depends upon our faith in Jesus Christ and our faithfulness. And remarkably arrival also depends upon our charity. Let me end by stating a principle and relating an experience.

Charity—the Key to Deliverance

Interestingly, ultimate deliverance seems to pivot on our willingness to shed selfishness and summon the courage to give and extend charity. The people of Limhi tried every conceivable way to deliver themselves and could not. It appears that it was only when they began to take care of the widows and orphans that the Lord’s deliverance came.[x]

This powerful principle—charity opens the door to deliverance—is so simple that we often miss it. As we know, giving time, talents, and resources can be manifested telestially, terrestrially, and celestially. A telestial person might not give unless he is forced to or unless he can receive something in return. A terrestrial person will give if he already has something to give.

A celestial person gives, not because he is forced to or expects something in return or because he has wherewithal to give, but because he loves God and his children more than he considers his inconvenience. A celestial person gives despite his present circumstances because he knows that the Lord will compensate him “an hundredfold,”[xi] which will provide him more so that he can give again. This level and attitude of charitable giving has the power to break the bonds of captivity. Armed only with the unselfish motivation of pure love, we can literally give ourselves into freedom!

We recall that despite a lifetime of extending charity, Job was required to give yet one more time in the darkest hour of his life; he extended charity to his accusatory friends and the result liberated him: “And the Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends.”[xii] Most certainly, Job’s past acts of giving contributed to his deliverance, but they did not carry as much weight as the present opportunity to give.

Hence, after all that Job had suffered, the single thing that stood between him and deliverance was one last charitable act. Then, when Job was able to reach deeply within himself and find the strength to give one more time, he was set free.

When the widow chose to give to Elijah rather than to give to her son and herself, she obtained deliverance from the famine, and later she experienced another type of deliverance when the Lord mercifully restored her son from the jaws of death.[xiii] Likewise, we are set free when we choose to give one last time or to place another’s needs before our own.

Fasting and Prayer without Charity is Vain

Mortality provides us ample opportunities to go to the Lord and plead for deliverance. But, according to Amulek, prayer without giving charitable service is hypocritical; moreover, such a prayer is powerless to yield blessings:

And now behold, my beloved brethren, I say unto you, do not suppose that this is all; for after ye have done all these things, if ye turn away the needy, and the naked, and visit not the sick and afflicted, and impart of your substance, if ye have, to those who stand in need—I say unto you, if ye do not any of these things, behold, your prayer is vain, and availeth you nothing, and ye are as hypocrites who do deny the faith. Therefore, if ye do not remember to be charitable, ye are as dross, which the refiners do cast out.[xiv]

Prayer without extending charity is just words bouncing off the ceiling.

Likewise, we often fast to obtain deliverance. We should fast to “loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke.” According to Isaiah, our fast counts for nothing more than going hungry unless we “deal [our] bread to the hungry, and . . . bring the poor that are cast out to [our] house,” and when we see “the naked, that [we] cover him.”[xv] It is only after we give charitable service that deliverance comes. Notice that Isaiah’s promises begin with the word then:

Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward [protector]. Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. . . . And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday: And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. And they that shall be of thee [your family] shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.[xvi]

Clearly, prayer and fasting are powerless to deliver without charity.

Charity is What We Become

Throughout our shared wilderness journey with the Lord, we have learned to love him by emulating him, and in the process we have become what he is: love. If the pure love of Christ is called charity, then we, like Christ whom we love, are charity. Charity, according to Elder Oaks, is not only an act but what we become.[xvii] And what we have now become holds sufficient power to deliver us. When people learn to extend charity, they become Zion.

While the world seeks safety with armies and treaties, while it looks for security in rising markets and fat portfolios, and while it tries untold numbers of options to obtain deliverance, Zion people simply keep God’s commandments and apply acts of charity. As easy as it was for the Israelites to look upon Moses’ brazen serpent to obtain healing, it is likewise easy for us to invoke the simple principle of giving to experience the Lord’s safety, security, and deliverance.

A Deliverance Experiment with Charity

As mentioned, a principle of deliverance that is widely overlooked is the simple act of charity. When times are the hardest and there seems no hope on the horizon, we might try reaching out to someone and expect, in the process, to nudge open the door of deliverance. A recent experience with the principle of generosity taught me how Zion people can save others and in the process achieve deliverance for themselves.

One Christmas, I became aware of a family that was expecting nothing for Christmas…again! I could count three consecutive Christmas mornings on which they had awakened to nothing under the tree. Not that that should matter. Christmas, as we know, is so much more than packages and bows. But it does matter, especially when there are children.

So I checked my wallet and found it bare. Being a professional writer and working in a non-profit company, I depend on royalties and grants for the projects we support. Royalties are a few months off, and the grant we had been working on for nearly two years was once again delayed. If prayer and fasting could have landed it in our coffers, we would have had the money months ago. Now it seemed more distant than ever.

When I thought of my destitute friends, all I could do was mourn. I took my concern to the Lord, and asked, “What can I do? I have nothing to give.” A thought entered my mind, Yes you do. As I mulled over the answer, the impression of other friends came to me—some who were also struggling financially or with serious issues. Frequently, I had prayed for these people. I asked, “I should approach them?” I felt a little ashamed asking people whom had little to give. But the impression was that by giving they would be blessed. I arose and began to make calls.

I should point out that many of my friends are artists whom I have helped in my foundation. They have art and product, but not too much money. When I called them, I explained that I had a friend who was in need and would they be willing to contribute some product. What happened next was a miracle. My simple request to help one family grew within 48 hours to impact nearly thirty families!

Each time I went to pick up gifts from one person, he (or she) would say, “I know of someone whom I would like to help, too.” Then I would call my network and additional commitments were made. When I finally had gathered everything for the first family, I shipped four large boxes of gifts, and I still had many more gifts to pass around. I suddenly understood why there are no poor in Zion and why Zion is always described in terms of beauty and abundance.

Then came the miracles to my giving friends. One couple received an unexpected contract for $10,000. On the same day, a husband who had lost his employment was offered a new job. Another family that had been waiting for two years for a contract finally received that one plus an additional contract. A woman who had been struggling with a serious question received an answer. And our foundation received its grant!

Becoming a Conduit

Since then I’ve learned an additional principle: When you decide that you are going to be a conduit of giving, the Lord will use you to funnel aid to his needy children. I learned that quite by coincidence. The day after we received our grant, I was contacted by a friend who had suddenly landed on hard times. He knew he could go to someone else for some temporary help, but as he prayed, my name came into his mind.

He hesitated because the last thing that I had told him was that our grant had not come through. Nevertheless, he followed the prompting, and I was able to help him on the spot. He just needed a Band-Aid for a few weeks until he got paid for a job that he was completing. As he was leaving, he asked if he could help someone in return, and a person’s name came into my mind that was going to have a skimpy Christmas. He had some art that he could give that family. He readily agreed.

Isn’t it wonderful! The helped become the helpers and everyone is leveled up. What a powerful principle is a simple act of charity!

Conclusion

This, then, is the universal journey through the Lord’s Wilderness to the promised land: Zion. The journey begins with and ends with deliverance episodes. It is fueled by the new and everlasting covenant. The path is marked by the Beatitudes, which are the principles of blessedness that progressively transform us into the image of God.

Despite our occasional feelings to the contrary, God has not set us on this path to lead us over a cliff. To successfully navigate the Lord’s Wilderness, we must humbly go up into the mount of the Lord often to learn to employ Zion principles that make little sense in a telestial world. There we might learn that God will require great things of us; but we will also learn that small acts of faith and charity can move massive obstacles.

In the end, after we have done all we can do, a simple act of charity might convey us the final distance. What a discovery it will be that we have ‘loved’ our way home to God and his Zion!

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