I Choose to Believe Because I Choose to Believe

What works for me is to be clear on what I know for sure and what I believe.

What I know for sure has gotten smaller and I have become more at peace with being uncertain. Uncertainty is another side of faith.

With everything cleared away, after considering everything, I choose to believe in the restored gospel. I choose to believe because I choose to believe. I choose it of my own free will and choice.

I claim this privilege and allow all men the same privilege, be they Mormon, theist or atheist.

Jesus was in the Ashes

The talk from Sister Wixom, Sunday morning is powerful. We ought to follow the example of the lady in the story. Question everything. Search, seek. I would hope that we all might have the support she had. Understanding. Non judgment. Support. Willing to accept whatever offering she was willing to give.

Her testimony was burned down. In the ashes Jesus was left. He is at the center of my testimony. The lady built her testimony on him. Primary songs do have such simple and powerful ideas. I love them and cherish them. She then built upon that with searching the new testament. She was then drawn to the Book of Mormon. There is no more powerful testimony of Jesus in the Book of Mormon.

The testimony of the lady grew bit by bit. She focused on what she knew. I imagine she plowed deep the soil of her soul. She prepared her own heart so that the seeds of the word of God would have room to root deeply in her soil. She nurtured and tended and watched carefully for signs that the seeds growing were good. She experienced the fruit after persistent and tender care.

A More Effective Effort to Save LDS Youth and Young Adults in a Secular Age

J. Max Wilson wrote a long article about how he feels the best way to strengthen the faith and character of people in an Internet age. A secular age where data and information are freely available.

I thought it was a worthwhile read. Here is a summary of suggestions he has to be more effective in our efforts.

1. Help them to have real, personal experiences with the divine.
2. Teach them an Ent-like aversion to hastiness in accepting or rejecting the facts and narratives which are presented to them.
3. Preemptively, but judiciously, present them with the facts, including complicated or difficult facts, within a faithful explanatory framework and narrative.
4. Educate our youth with a realistic understanding of science and scholarship.
5. Youth should also learn to be discerning and cautious about information they are given by believers in the church and apologists as well as critics.
6. Provide them with a framework that accounts for the individual fallibility of church leaders while still upholding the authority and legitimacy of the prophets and apostles as trustworthy spokesmen for God.
7. Teach them that questions are good, and that periodic struggle with doubt is normal and expected, but that doubt is something to be resolved and overcome, not cultivated and indulged.
8. Love them unconditionally, recognizing that real love means being willing to stand up for what is right, even if it is not what they want to hear.