I have been thinking of that sentiment a lot lately. I recall the first time I really got jazzed about having "faith." I had been taught at church that it was believing in God, believing in His power and in His ability to bless our lives. Then I went to school one day, in Jr. High, and realized I hadn't studied at all for a test. I'd forgotten all about it. Darn. I closed my eyes immediately and earnestly prayed from my desk that I would still get an A. I had complete and total faith, the faith of a child, that God would help me. I would still ace this test, I knew it.
I got a B-.
All things considered, I probably should have been pretty happy with that. Haha. But I will tell you that it really shook my faith. I mean, I had prayed and believed God would help me. I was missing a vital piece of information. Without doing work, without doing anything, all you have is belief, not faith. Faith without works is not faith. If you do really well and you haven't worked at all for it, there's a word for that, too. It's LUCK. I really think the entire story of the first book in the Book of Mormon, first Nephi, could be summed up with one phrase: get out and work hard, or you don't have faith and you won't be blessed.
For those of you not familiar with the Book of Mormon, of for those of you who are, but who are scratching your heads and thinking, "what is crazy Bridget babbling on about now?" let me explain. In the first book (section) of the book of Mormon, you read about the story of a guy named Nephi (the hero) and his family. His father is a prophet, and you get a fairly comprehensive understanding of the fact that being a prophet's son might not be completely awesome all the time. Lehi, the prophet (also known as Nephi's dad) is living in Jerusalem, but the Jews are pretty wicked at the time. He goes out to try and teach his neighbors and friends, but it doesn't go well. To put this in a modern day perspective, let's consider.
How would you feel about going door to door and pointing out the weaknesses of all your neighbors and friends? I can imagine it going something like this. "You, fine next door neighbor, you are an alcoholic." Door slams.
Next door. "You, good friend, you spend too much money on things that don't matter." Punch to the nose.
Now, one more. "You are spending too much time away and letting your kids rot in front of the television." Spat upon.
Oh fine, just one more today. "You should not be having an affair." Right hook to eye.
You get the picture. Lehi was a righteous guy in a wicked land and it was not a popular place to be, because no one really takes kindly to someone telling them they need to repent. In any case, God tells Lehi he needs to relocate his entire family. Jerusalem is being destroyed, and if they don't book it out of there, they will be destroyed, too. God has a land of promise in store for Lehi's family, if only they have enough faith.
At this point, Bridget (that's me) would be inclined to say, "But wait!! I've been faithful. I am willing to remain faithful, here in my home, with my nice things, and my little fluffy dog and my car and my clothing and my swimming pool. Please reward my faith with a continuation of those blessings. Let the storm pass over me and keep me and my family and my friends and my pets safe. Thank you."
I would be thinking, "Okay, it was hard, but I was faithful. My neighbors hate me, but I've done my part."
It was not to be.
God was quite clear with Lehi. Ditch your stuff. Leave it all. Wander around in the woods.
Gosh, that would be hard. I would like to be faithful from the convenience of my own sofa, thanks very much. With air conditioning and a bug guy. Yes, definitely with a bug guy, and a refrigerator.
Basically, I would have failed test number one. Nephi and his family pass the test. They actually do leave. They meander around lost in the wilderness for a while, but eventually they get to a big old ocean. Well, crap. Somehow we got here, and we're still not to that land you promised us, God. This is where Bridget would have sat down and cried. "I left it all, I am out here alone, bug bitten, having had two kids while wandering around in this filthy forest (can we say NO EPIDURAL!?) and NOW I am stuck in front of this ocean? You have got to be kidding me."
But then... that's when God says, "You need to get on a boat and cross the ocean. Your end point is somewhere on the other side."
"FINE," Bridget would say, "I will wait right here on this beach until you send me a boat." I would plonk myself down and pray really hard. God can do anything, right? So have someone bring me a boat. Or better yet, just poof one up for me. I'm not picky. I will literally take ANY color.
Except, God didn't say that. He told poor Nephi to get busy and BUILD one. Egads, are you kidding me? I have no idea how to build a boat. Now wait, here's the great news. God will tell you how to do it. (I am not feeling like this is fantastic news...) And even better?? Step one is... wait for it... melt down some metal to make some tools.
Nuh, uh, you didn't. Are you kidding me? Step one is MAKE TOOLS? Which you then have to use to MAKE A BOAT? Which you then have to hop into and ride on for like ten years??? At which point you will land in the middle of freaking nowhere? Literally on a land that is uninhabited, but for bugs the size of plates and wolves and mountain lions?
Pass.
I would like a car service to take me back to Jerusalem please. They may be destroyed soon, but at least until then, they have beds and stuff.
Okay but folks, it gets worse. While Nephi is out there breaking his back wandering around and then building tools to build boats, his brothers are whining and complaining and tying him up. No, seriously. They are literally tying him up and threatening his life.
Of course, our hero does what anyone would do, right? Prays for the strength to "burst his bands" and show those fools what power from God looks like!!! What does God do? Oh, that's right. He loosens them so Nephi can wiggle out and then reasonably explain to his brothers that they were overreacting.
But where's the pizzazz?!? God is all powerful! God can do anything!! Where is my jet to the ocean? My cruise ship to the promised land? Where is the magical answer to my problem!!?? When I pray for a new house, I don't mean, please help me get enrolled in school so I can get good grades and graduate and get an entry level job where I make nothing and then work for years until I earn a good living and I can buy a decent home. What I meant was... I want a nice house, NOW. I have faith, so please give it to me.
Honestly, for years and years, I read the first book in the Book of Mormon and I kind of hated Laman and Lemuel (Nephi's complaining older brothers). They are so whiny, they are so wicked, they are so lazy and worthless. Lately, I've come to see that I resemble Laman and Lemuel much more closely than I resemble Nephi. (Sorry to say.) They usually did the right thing, but they grumbled about it. Check. They had points where they weren't sure whether they wanted to do the right thing, to work super hard. Check. They made wrong turns and sinned. Check. Oh dear. But I detest them, don't I?
Around the time my third child turned 18 months, I started going to nursery. (In the Mormon church, we have a one hour "sacrament meeting" that is similar to any other church, and then afterward we have a 45 minute Sunday School class and then a one hour meeting where we break into men and women. During those second and third hours, the children go into a special class called Primary. The kids aged 18 months to three years of age go into "nursery" where they are given snacks, they have singing time and they play with puzzles and toys. It's basically a structured babysitting program for the babies.) I wasn't called to (given the official assignment of) nursery, per se, but I was in there every single week because they were short staffed. After a few months of this, I was asked to do it formally, as my church job. We don't have paid clergy, so every member of the church has a "calling" or job to perform. They asked me to work in the nursery. That was now over two years ago.
When we moved, they told me at first I would not be sent to nursery. It's very hard to make friends and get to know people in a new ward if you are spending every single week babysitting for other people's kids. And yet, after a few weeks of substituting in the nursery, they called me to work in the nursery. At the time, they reassured me that it was "temporary", and only for a month or two until they could get things all worked out. I would then be released so I could get to know people in the ward, etc.
When we had been in the ward for about three months, the time I should have been released came and went. I am sorry to say my attitude about this was not very good. I did not ask to be released, but I complained. To my mom. To my sister. To Whitney. To the man on the corner. I was really struggling with being in nursery. I dreaded every single Sunday. It's not that I felt that it was beneath me--it's just that I felt I had done my time and then some. I had tried to be good, but let there be an end! Let me do anything else!
It got to the point where I thought maybe I shouldn't bother going to church on Sunday at all. I go to church alone most of the time because of my husband's work schedule. It is hard to sit in church alone and watch your children, keep them occupied and quiet. Then after that, I have to go watch 8-14 toddlers for two hours? If I stay home, I can save myself almost four hours of exhaustion and honestly, I could spend far more time studying church principles from home.
It was a tempting thought. Things felt very hard for me. I felt very unloved. If I'm being honest, I felt very very alone. I didn't know many people in the ward, and I had moved away from my family.
I decided to pray about it. I decided to pray that God would remove me from nursery. Surely He would hear the cries of his daughter and He would bless her.
Here is the problem with what I wanted, and with my entire approach, with my obscured view of faith. I looked at it growing up (and again recently) as something that I would believe in my heart. I thought that then, I should be rewarded for that belief. It was a feeling, rewarded by a blessing. I pray and I believe, therefore I should be blessed.
I was wrong because faith is not a feeling.
God knows this, and I know it, but I needed to be reminded. Faith is a belief that prompts an action. I prayed to be released from this job and instead, I received the clear and strong reassurance that my Heavenly Father loves me. That He knows of my needs. That I would be released and get to move on to do something else, to serve in a different way, but that the time was not yet come for that to happen. He told me I needed instead to change my heart.
Because there is a reason why Nephi had to slog through the jungle. There's a reason he had to put up with whiny brothers. There's a reason he had to build tools, then hew down trees and cut them into a boat, and then sail across stormy and frightening waters. We are not here on earth to receive blessings!! We are here to be shaped. We are here to be molded.
We are here to become like our brother Jesus Christ, to become like our Father. We become like them by ACTION not by blessings, not by gifts. God doesn't care about Nephi's boat making skills, but he cares very much about the strength of his heart, the willingness of his hands to do what is asked. Unless we strive, we do not ever grow.
I was blessed with the perspective I needed to see tending these little ones as an opportunity to be strengthened myself, as a chance to serve my God. It became an opportunity to be humble, and to do what I was told to do, even if I didn't want to do it. I count myself lucky that I wasn't asked to go camping for years. (I would die!!) or to build a boat, or to have a child with no epidural!! It could be much worse, and my shaping process could be so much harder than God has made it.
But my point, and I know I have taken a long time in coming to it, is that once I decided to love these children, once I decided to put some effort into nursery, and to do it with a smile, it got better. I was able to feel edified through church attendance, even in nursery. My kids behaved better in sacrament meeting so I got a tiny bit of enrichment from the speakers during that first hour. I have increased study time each day with my children so I am learning more there. God will bless you if you settle down and work for it.
He cannot bless you from the couch. He cannot bless you if you don't sweat first.
If you are like me, and you are praying for something, wishing for something, hoping for something... stop sitting on the couch and hoping! God will tell you how to do it, but get up and start melting that metal to make those tools! Action will spur you on to greater action and before you know it, you will be the most faithful of God's servants. I know this to be true, and I promise it to you.
1 Nephi 16:29 sums it up beautifully: And thus we see that by small means, the Lord can bring about great things.
It's okay if you start small, because the Lord brings about great things from very small means.
Update: Emmy decided, the week after my post, to "be a big girl" all the time and has not had an accident since then. Yay, the "no fighting" worked!! :-)
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