Don’t Miss This Devotional
Let Us Be Faithful to Him
From a devotional address given to young adults at Ensign College on May 10, 2022. For the full address, visit ensign.edu.
Faith in Jesus Christ has empowered me to wait with the trust that God keeps his promises.
As a little girl, if you had asked me to define faith, I would have described it using something like the following scenario: “When I lost my book last week, I prayed to find it, and then I did! Now I have faith that prayer works.” Or “I was really nervous about my piano recital, so I asked God to help me, and I played perfectly!” These sorts of experiences repeated multiple times throughout my childhood, and each time I felt more reassured that my action combined with God’s miracle equaled faith.
This line of thinking worked, but as I got older and as my dilemmas grew larger, I noticed that God’s answers to my prayers seemed to come less and less frequently. And sometimes, no answers came at all. In moments when I felt I had exhausted all my efforts without receiving understanding, I began to wonder about my faith. Where was God when I needed Him most? Was my faith too weak? Was I doing it wrong?
Though I am still in the middle of understanding this, I’m learning that living with faith in Christ means our focus is to be fixed on Him rather than on outcomes. Faith precedes the miracle.1 It sustains us in the waiting. It propels us in the unknown. And it helps us, regardless of the circumstance, move closer to God. I’ve been blessed with many people and experiences in my life that have taught me what it looks like to live in faith. I want to share a few of those with you today.
An Example from My Friend Whittlee
In 2018, my friend Whittlee was living a beautiful life. She was 29 years old, married to her high school sweetheart, and had three beautiful daughters. She was also the owner of an interior design business, a podcast creator, a marathon runner, and a wonderful wife and mother.
But near the end of that year, her life began to change drastically. After weeks and months of seeking answers, Whittlee received the terrible news of a large tumor in her body. She had stage four terminal cancer.
She had so many questions and faced an innumerable amount of unknowns. But Whittlee told me she was determined to trust in heaven’s plan and do all she could to live a beautiful life. And she did. She closed her business and redirected all her energy towards those things of greatest importance to her: God and her family.
Whittlee faithfully reported what she was grateful for in each of her treatments. She also noted specific things her friends could pray for, and she consistently pointed out the silver lining in her journey.
When the tumors in her lungs doubled in size, Whittlee thanked heaven that her other tumors had shrunk.
When her cancer developed to the point of prohibiting her from eating any solid foods, Whittlee praised the blessing of modern medicine to help her receive nutrients in other ways.
When her life’s situation seemed unfair and painful and incomprehensible, Whittlee looked upward and proclaimed her trust in God.
I visited Whittlee in December of 2019. During that sacred week, I watched my sweet friend endure significant physical pain just so she could play with her little girls. I saw her patiently deal with nausea while simultaneously ensuring everyone had a Christmas gift prepared. I heard her, through her exhaustion, tell each of her nurses and helping neighbors “thank you.” Above all this, I listened to her boldly declare her trust in God’s plan for her to every person who came to visit.
I wondered how this was possible. “Why her? Why this? Why now?” It all felt so unfair.
One afternoon I asked Whittlee about a picture of the Savior on her wall. With tears in her eyes, she told me: “When my days feel difficult or the questions in my head get overwhelming, I remember Him. I remember that He once asked, ‘Is there any other way?’”
“I wonder that same question too,” she continued. “‘Is this really it? Is there any other way?’ When it doesn’t make sense, I cling to my belief that His plan for me is perfect, even if I don’t understand it.”
On her 31st birthday Whittlee wrote, “I pray today that I continue to live a wonderful life … full of faith in God and trust in His plan.”2 She was a deep believer that God’s plan doesn’t happen to us, but for us.
Whittlee passed away on January 28, 2020, one year following her initial diagnosis.
Whittlee’s faith in God was not dependent on the outcome she wanted. It was, rather, the power that sustained her while she trusted in God’s outcome.
President Nelson said, “The mountains in our lives do not always move how or when we would like. But our faith will always propel us forward. Faith always increases our access to godly power.”3 Whittlee taught me that.
An Experience from My Own Life
In my late 20s, I started praying earnestly for a blessing I deeply wanted. It seemed, from my perspective, that this was something that aligned with God’s plan and God’s promises. I kept my covenants, I attended church, I read my scriptures, I prayed, and I waited. But the blessing I was seeking didn’t come.
I redoubled my efforts. I focused more intently on my religious habits, and I became more earnest in my pleadings with heaven. I shared my hopes with God more regularly, and I included it as part of my monthly fast. But still, the blessing did not come.
I went to the temple in the midst of my frustration. And I sat, and I listened, and I waited there that day until finally, I learned something. In a poignant moment of exasperation, the thought entered my mind: “This is not the end of your journey. God has eternity to keep His promises.”
I had been leaning on my own understanding to explain to God the appropriate timetable for delivering my blessings. That, my friends, is not faith.
I left the temple that day still without the blessing I was seeking, but with a mindset that has changed every day of my life since. After years of figuratively tapping my foot impatiently at God, this single truth about timing elevated my focus back to Him. It suspended my concerns with timetables and outcomes and gave me the power to simply have faith in Him.
Today, I am still waiting on this blessing. And I may be waiting for a long, long time. But faith has empowered me to wait with the trust that God keeps his promises and that He has eternity to do so.
Conclusion
I am grateful for Jesus Christ. I am grateful for the examples in my life that have pointed me to Him. I believe in Him. I testify that Jesus Christ lives and that He is, as the scriptures say, “an high priest of good things to come” (Hebrews 9:11).
I testify that faith in Jesus Christ is, as our prophet says, “the greatest power available to us in this life.”4 It exists not after the blessing, as I thought as a child, but before it—in our moment of greatest need. Acting before knowing, trusting before understanding, believing before receiving; that’s faith to me. I promise that as you focus your faith on Christ rather than on outcomes, you will find a sustaining power to endure every circumstance.