How Can We Find the Faith to Follow Through on a Prompting?
The Lord wants you to learn how to trust Him.
Have you ever received a prompting and then doubted it later?
Maybe at some point in the past, you received a burst of inspiration. Something that felt so real and strong in the moment but now feels diminished and faded due to passing time, mental health issues, or the influence of the adversary.
You might wonder, “Heavenly Father, are You really there? And do You hear and answer ev’ry child’s prayer?”
As Elder Neil L. Andersen of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles taught at general conference, “Brothers and sisters, the peace you seek may not come as quickly as you desire, but I promise you that as you trust in the Lord, His peace will come.”
Trusting in the Lord is key to overcoming this doubt, but how do you do that? How can you trust God when you can’t feel His influence now?
Hope!
Exercising Hope before Praying for an Answer
So what exactly is hope? One definition of hope is “to desire with expectation of obtainment or fulfillment.”
Looking toward this definition of hope can help you better understand the role it plays in trusting God. When you ask a question in preparation for general conference, you expect an answer from the Lord, even if it might not be the one you’re looking for.
When you pray before revelation comes, you’re expressing hope that Heavenly Father is really listening and faith that your prayers will be answered. As taught in the Old Testament, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1, emphasis added.)
Moving Forward After
Hope isn’t just useful while waiting for a prompting—it can also influence what you do with revelation once you receive it.
When trying to figure out if I really have received revelation, the most important thing I’ve learned is that I need to change my questions for God from “Was that prompting I felt right? Will things be OK? Can I trust it?” to “Heavenly Father, I have hope that this is right. Help me achieve it if it is Thy will.”
Instead of questioning, simply choosing to move forward with hope and faith in the future is the best thing that you can do, especially when facing uncertainty.
Elder Andersen continued, “As we strengthen our faith in Jesus Christ, we see beyond our struggles to the blessings and promises of eternity. Like a light whose brilliance grows, hope brightens the darkened world, and we see our glorious future.”
The Lord loves effort, and most importantly, He loves you. He wants you to learn how to trust that you can receive revelation and have hope in it, even in difficult circumstances.
Even if you can’t always recognize His presence, He is by your side as you follow Him and continue to learn to hear Him.
That is something we can all have hope and faith in.