Trust God and Trust Yourself

A scripture that I remind myself of says, "Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me. But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right. But if it be not right you shall have no such feelings, but you shall have a stupor of thought that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong;" (D&C 9:6-9). That scripture is meaningful to me because while the adversary would like us to go on in confusion and without particular direction, the Lord would have us take some thought, look at advantages and disadvantages, think about inspirations and revelations and feelings thus far, then make a decision. Once we make a decision, we then move forward in that direction and watch it unfold. It is as Hebrews 11:1, which states, “Faith is the assurance (confidence or certainty) of things hoped for, the evidence (facts or information proved) of things not seen.” Paul is telling us to go ahead and try faith. My brother and I like to go cliff jumping at lakes in the summertime. He coaxes me and encourages me EVERY time and stands right there with me. We must get ourselves ready to jump off the cliff into the water, or do which we have decided upon or hoped for, then watch as the evidence of having taken the leap of faith unfolds itself. The splash usually wasn’t as scary as I thought. In fact, everything turns out alright and I even had a lot of fun! We have to show faith by moving forward by deciding to and then as we move forward, not knowing what will happen, the Lord will light the way, which He does best, mind you, and then gives us the proper evidence we need to know if the decision was the right one.

I recently experienced this with graduate school. I felt confident about moving forward until a little thing called fear paralyzed me for a full week after ALMOST pushing the accept button. Fear of the unknown stops us dead in our tracks, while faith gives us the confidence to move forward. The best part is that He promises us that He will light the way for us. The Lord encourages us to “walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you (John 12:35).” To me, that indicates that we have a time period that we need to act upon what we have received as inspiration from God or else the adversary comes in and clouds our mind and heart, creating darkness and confusion. At that point, we so often find ourselves second-guessing the choice or the feelings we originally recieved. Why do we do that? Usually out of fear of the unknown or fear of hurting someone. Where does fear come from? The father of lies. He puts little lies in our head, telling us we can’t do that, we’re not good enough, we aren’t ready, and the strongest lie of all...that what we received wasn’t real and you can’t trust your feelings. Boy, does that get our head spinning like a hamster in a cage and get our heart weighing 3 stones heavier! We no longer trust ourselves or the Lord and find ourselves in the darkness the Lord warned us about.

What can we do about this? Pay attention to how we felt in the beginning of whatever journey we are plodding and as we began the path, then weigh in the factors that are important to us. From there, MAKE a decision. That's right, this is the most important part...make a decision and then put that decision in God’s hands and then do as the Beatles put it so simply, let it be. Just start walking forward, or if you have to close your eyes and leap into the water, by all means, that is why it is called a leap of faith. The Lord will help you see the rest of the story. He will unfold what needs to be revealed and you will know whether your decision is the right path for you. Trust Him and trust yourself. I forget to do both often...