Okay, so yesterday was a really really bad day. I started having negative thoughts, and Clint's interview didn't go as well as we'd hoped. I say that not knowing the end result-they'll let him know by the end of the week if they want to hire him. So, my faith is wavering, mightily, and I expressed this wavering of faith in prayer and yesterday afternoon I open my scriptures to read. I'm reading out of the Book of Mormon and the New Testament. It was in the New Testament that I read Matt. 6:25-30 where I'm counceled to "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than rainment?" It goes on to say Heavenly Father feeds the fowls of the air and clothes the grass of the field and 'how much more will he not provide for you, if ye are not of little faith'? Then in v. 32 "...for your heavenly father knoweth that ye have need of all these things." I was reminded that I need to be patient and stop waivering in my faith.
Earlier in the chapter v. 19-21, laying up treasures is spoken of. Well, today went back to reread what I'd read yesterday to again think about increasing my faith and I started at these verses, but a thought entered my mind as I read them. "What kind of treasures are being spoken of really?" So I checked out the footnotes, which I like to do, and I was directed to Heb. 10:34 as a cross reference to treasure in heaven. So there I turn, and of course I start somewhere before that verse to see what context it is in. I end up reading past verse 34, forgetting what verse I was to read and came to v. 36 which I had underlined and it reads "For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise." Oh, yes, patience again! How I needed to be reminded that I am so lacking in this department when it comes to faith. I want to know now! So the next chapter in Hebrews is all about 'by faith...' and all the things given to those who showed it. Back to the practice board for me. How well the Lord knows me.
Another interesting thought came from reading all the effects of peoples faith was the reference "as in a strange country" and "strangers and pilgrims on the earth" and "now they desire a better country". What a reminder to me when I think there is this certain life I want to be leading, how those who lived before by faith didn't have the 'normal' life as those around them. They also didn't receive the promise while living on earth. They were looking for another place and "they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword:...God having provided some better things for them through their sufferings for without sufferings they could not be made perfect". I once again feel blessed to be in the situation I am in, to be experiencing the things I am, and to be drawn closer to the Lord as I am. To finish this off, as I just looked at Chapter 12 in Hebrews it says "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." Thank you Heavenly Father. Where's the tissue....
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