Faith

I just got around to watching the movie Bucket List last night. It's a sad but uplifting story about two men who are diagnosed with cancer and given a year to live. While they are on a last chance get-away trip together, they have a conversation about faith and the existence of God. Cole says something like, “You don't claim to know anything I don't know.” Carter replies that he “just has faith.”

As I watched this, I felt sad for the millions of people out there who think that belief is all that faith can be. I am so grateful that I have been taught about how God speaks to us through the power of the Holy Ghost. Those sweet assurances that have come to me during times of prayer enable me to say with no doubt that I know God lives and Jesus Christ is our Savior. I know they are real. I have felt it through the power of the Holy Ghost and there is nothing that would ever cause me to say that I merely believe or have faith that they are real. They have performed miracles and answered prayers in my life.

So if you are one of those people who think faith can never progress into a perfect knowledge until after death, then I have a challenge for you. Pray. Pray simply for your Heavenly Father to manifest to you the truthfulness of the scriptures, or of the existence of Him and His Son. The Lord has promised that if you pray in faith, believing that you will receive an answer to your prayer, you will receive.

I do not wish to belittle the faith of others. Faith is how it all begins! Faith is absolutely necessary! But be assured that in a conversation like Carter's, it is possible to reply with a sure knowledge that God is real because of the witness felt in the heart.