Taking the time to look

A common phrase about faith goes like this: “Faith is believing without seeing”. I’ve always heard that phrase tied to scripture. I always struggled with this phrase's silent undercurrent of blind faith. Having to just believe then the miracle appears. I always tried to reconcile the idea of “believing without seeing” with other scriptures. For instance, the Lord makes an invitation through the prophet, Malachi. We are invited to make donations to the storehouse and see if God won’t open the windows of Heaven. (Malachi 3:8-11) Things like this make sense to me. God makes an invitation, I act on the invitation, and then God blesses me for following that invitation. At that point, I see my faith grow because I see God keeping His promise as I obey.

Then I listened to what Elder Joseph W. Sitati, of the Quorum of the Seventy, said: “Whenever we care to notice, we see that Heavenly Father has given us sufficient witnesses of truth to govern our lives so we will know Him and have the blessings of peace and joy.” (Patterns of Discipleship, General Conference, 2022) I had to take a step back and think about this. Elder Sitati said, “Whenever we care”. Well, did I care? Did I care to know the truth? Did I care to see what God had done for me?

There are some powerful questions that arose in my mind that humbled me. I thought back to the phrase I shared earlier: “Faith is believing without seeing”. I think faith in Christ is taking the time to observe the blessings I have received and who the blessings originated from. This step back is a humbling experience. When I took my step back, I was humbled to see the witnesses of God’s hand in my life just in the last day, let alone a lifetime! There are so many witnesses of God in my life. Nothing in life, I have learned, is by coincidence. It is all by design, specifically, God’s design.

So, as the hymn says: “When upon life’s burdens you are tempest-tossed, When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost, Count your many blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done.” (Count Your Blessings, Hymn 241) Sometimes, all that has to be done to develop faith is to look around and see what God has already done. In observing that, it is pretty easy to see what God can and will do in the future!

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