Faith in Every Footstep

This past week was absolutely killer. Trying to balance a full-time job, it's not quite full-time but rather close, with school and then family commitments just about left me groping for my sanity. Coupled with all of that are a lot of other difficulties; finances, grades, strengthening relationships, work commitments, you get the picture. Through all of this there were so many times when I would stop to ask myself, in the few seconds of "free" time that I managed to steal every day, "why is any of this happening?" I began to find myself doubting in large measure a lot of the blessings that God promises through scriptures and other means of revelation because they certainly didn't seem to be happening in my life no matter how hard I tried to be obedient to commandments and what not. Above all, things seemed to become more difficult the harder I tried to do well in all of my commitments, those spiritual as well as secular. It came to a point where I was considering making major changes in my life to cut some things out so that I could handle the things that were being dished out to me.

To make a long story short I was trying really hard not to mope around but rather look for answers when, as if by divine intervention itself, I found myself reading from the Book of Mormon in Ether Ch. 12. For those of you unfamiliar with this specific book or chapter, just understand that it's main subject is that of faith, specifically, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a verse in the chapter that reads "And now I Moroni would speak somewhat concerning these things, I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen. Wherefore dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until AFTER the trial of your faith." Reading this simple passage just stopped me dead in the water and suddenly so many things started to make sense. All of those blessings and other things that I felt had been promised to me but that I had been cheated out of due to a lack of manifestation in my life suddenly seemed so very much more realistic. I simply just wasn't, or even wanting to for that matter, endeavoring to endure these trials with faith, trusting in God that He would deliver me and keep His words and etc. The chapter continues with talking about miracles, and how they are also only manifest AFTER the trial of our faith, how God cannot perform any miracle without there FIRST being faith manifested.

Moral of the story? don't give up on God because He doesn't operate according to your time schedule, just keep on keeping on and trust that He is watching over you. We might not understand why things happen the way they do but if we trust Him and try our best to keep His commandments and do the simple things that are asked of us then we can be assured that everything will be alright in the end.