I have been reading this book called The Second Comforter and encountered a part that I found to be very helpful. It starts on page 74. I hope these passages will inspire you as they have me, to view your world differently.
"How we perceive our challenges determines how we meet them. If we see God as the over riding influence in life's challenges, then we can trust God to help us through them.... It is always a battle between faith and skepticism. Do you see it as a fight between your own willingness to trust God to deliver you, or in merely physical terms. Does God care about your life's dilemmas? Will he help deliver you from your 'Goliaths'? Do you trust Him? Do you believe in Him? Do you believe He is interested and involved in your life? Will you accept the proof of His involvement as His word to you? Do you feel His proofs are not sufficient or substantial enough to have faith in them?
"Faith in a distant and unconcerned God may satisfy some Latter-day Saints. But that is not the God Nephi (or David) believed in. In Nephi's example we find a personal God involved in everyday life. We find a God who will give a challenge to us, and then walk beside us to see we succeed. Nephi is trying to teach us this is the way God operates in all of our lives. He is not distant. He is a part of each of our daily lives. We can ignore Him, or acknowledge Him. But whether we accept or reject His involvement, Nephi's view is that He is present and concerned.
"...You must accept Him as someone who cares enough about you that He will help you accomplish His commandments. You must be willing to accept the forms of communications He uses to facilitate this.
"...No Goliath in your life will destroy you. Rather, God will destroy the Goliaths for you.
"In the end, Goliaths are merely opportunities for you to demonstrate your faith. They will be swept away when they no longer serve any purpose. They are there only temporarily to provide you with an opportunity to demonstrate faith.
"Those Goliaths you face are opportunities to see if you will proceed in faith to confront them. They are opportunities and blessings, not difficulties. They are mere illusions; here to test your faith. Face them with faith and with the confidence 'the Lord gives you no commandments save he shall prepare a way for you to accomplish the thing which he hath commanded,' as Nephi would put it. Until you are willing to do this, and actually begin to see life's challenges in this light, you are not ready to proceed further.
"You have to take the proofs, the feelings, the dreams and the insubstantial communications from God and bring them into the physical and material world in which you live. If you are not willing to bring these things from the spiritual into the physical realities by you faith, then the veil will remain in place....
"Nephi has an errand to perform. He accepts that errand faithfully and with confidence the Lord is going to help accomplish it. And he acts in this physical world consistent with faith in the unseen world. That is how we all need to act.
"We all have faith in something. And we act consistent with that faith. Whether faith is in God or in science or in philosophy, we all act consistent with our beliefs. Since that is invariably true, you may as well accept Nephi's view and promise of how things really are and try trusting God in that matter. The alternative is to stay as you are now, and not progress in spiritual matters.
[After multiple failures in getting the plates]..."Nephi's tenacity in approaching his assignment shows that even in dark and discouraging moments he remains committed to the Lord. Nephi's experience demonstrates that trials, setbacks or temporary failure do not mean the Lord has abandoned you. Nor does it mean the Lord has forgotten His promises to you, anymore than this setback meant that to Nephi. D&C 1:38... The upside is the He [the Lord] will not excuse Himself from the commitments made you....if you remain faithful (like Nephi) no difficulty will prevent ultimate success.
"A temporary setback in any Godly undertaking is for your benefit. If you were not given these changes to show faith, then you would fail to develop into the person God wants you to become. ... It requires persistence at almost certain failure. It requires you to look Goliath in the face and say he is God's problem, not yours. Your problem is to persist in faith. The result will occur, however unlikely they may seem at the moment, in the way God has promised.
"Though these things may seem vague and ill-defined or perhaps even chaotic, they are not. As you persist in keeping God's commandments you get an increasingly clear perception. There are concrete and tangible relationships. They are real. Following them will result in anyone, anywhere, from any culture or background, receiving the results.
"One of the necessary experiences through which you must pass is the experience of apparent imminent failure.... You must choose between the apparent failure of faith, and the desire to persist. Facing the end, you must retain hope. This is good for the soul, even though it is painful to endure. You must face the physical dilemmas and difficulties in life while viewing them in their true spiritual setting. You must rend the veil."
I will stop there. The book is awesome! These passages give me hope in my current dilemmas. I have never heard someone speak so plainly about what it means to exercise faith in the unseen in the physical world we live in.
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I think it is very hard for people to learn how to trust God when the world is so much in their face.
I think it triggers questions of "why is it so hard to live, I have been conditioned to do things in the way of the world's views?" I think the reason why people say obeying the commandments is so hard is because it isn't the norm and the body can so easily do different from the commandments.
Having faith can be very hard in my opinion. It takes a lot of work and time, this isn't accepted easily when there is so much going on around us.
I think it can also be very hard to rely on the spirit because it can be hard to understand the promptings that are given.
Plus the feelings that the spirit gives to one person, another person may not agree on and then there is confusion.
Anyways this is just me ram-belling on about different thoughts and feelings about having faith and why I feel like it can be so difficult.
So it takes a lot of patience and trial and error to get to a state where a person can understand the workings of God.
I think the best way to develop faith and trust is one step at a time. Bumping heads with God, fighting, trying and failing, leaving for awhile for some and then having an awakening of sort, later in life to come back. This could be from a hour to 10 years.
I think the key though, is simply trying. The scripture that comes to my mind is "2 Nephi 2 21 And the days of the children of men were prolonged, according to the will of God, that they might repent while in the flesh;"
If we keep trying, with the intent to succeed, then God will take up the slack.
Anyways this is some jumbled thoughts and feelings of the way I feel at different times in my struggles with everyday life and learning to trust in God and Christ.
(I didn't proof read this so I apologize for mistakes)
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