It's the first Sunday of May. Traditionally in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the first Sunday of every month is fast and testimony meeting.
For the fasting part, church members are basically invited to skip two meals and donate what they would have spent to the poor and needy. It's a good opportunity to pray for divine inspiration or help. It's also a private, personal experience and nobody is going to ask you if you did it.
Conversely, testimony meeting is public. During the first hour of church, members are invited to share their thoughts and feelings, or "testimonies," of Jesus Christ. Anyone can walk up to the microphone at the front of the room and share.
Recently, all church meetings have been canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Clayton and I hold our own meetings at home.
I felt the desire to share my testimony today. It's different writing it down instead of talking about it, but that's okay. I've sometimes thought it's easier to express myself in writing anyway.
This week I was reading an article in Ensign magazine that mentioned the "triangle of faith." The author explains the points in the triangle as 1) the Spirit, 2) the scriptures, and 3) the prophets, "especially living ones." A triangle is a strong shape, and working on our personal triangle of faith helps keep us spiritually strong. (Benjamin Hyrum White, "Sherem's Skepticism: The Tactics of a Faith Shaker," Ensign, April 2020)
The triangle of faith imagery appealed to me. But I adapted it a little because I feel the scriptures and the prophets are sort of the same. After all, what are scriptures but the words of prophets written down? To me, it makes more sense for the points in the triangle to be prayer, scriptures (including the words of living prophets), and the Spirit.
As I thought about my personal triangle of faith, I realized that each point has played a significant role in my own relationship with God.
Prayer
I first began to be aware of God at a young age. My parents taught me to pray and took me to Church. I had numerous experiences as a child praying for God's help. Sometimes I was praying for help finding something I'd lost; other times I prayed for help going back to sleep after a bad dream. One time when I was 12 or 13, I remember my bishop asking me how often I prayed and I replied, "Pretty much all the time. I need a lot of help." (If only 12-year-old me knew how much help 27-year-old me was going to need. Nothing has changed, haha.)
These experiences going to a loving Heavenly Father in prayer became a crucial part of the foundation of my relationship with Him.
Scriptures (words of God's prophets, including living ones)
The scriptures, particularly the Book of Mormon, also played a huge role in helping me form a relationship with God. I read it by myself for the first time in 2005, when President Gordon B. Hinckley challenged all church members to read it all the way through by the end of the year.
I've had questions and doubts over the years about certain aspects of the gospel, but there's always one thing I cannot deny: I know the Book of Mormon came from God. I've read it numerous times and prayed to know the truth about its origins. Every time I read it, I feel the Spirit. And the Book of Mormon played such a central role in the formation of my particular religion that if it's true, so is everything else: Joseph Smith was actually a prophet of God, and this is Jesus Christ's New Testament church restored to Earth.
That thought has brought me a lot of peace. I may not understand everything perfectly, but I do know the Book of Mormon is true, which means at least I'm looking for answers in the right place.
The Spirit
Of course, the Spirit is the key to anyone's relationship with God. He often acts as a messenger from God, and one of his many responsibilities is to testify of truth.
The Spirit is sort of like the glue that holds my testimony together; it's how I know the Book of Mormon is true and there is a living prophet of God today. When I pray, the answers or comfort I seek typically come from the Spirit.
I've written about how my testimony has been fundamentally shaped by the Spirit before, and I don't plan to go into it all again. Suffice it to say, I agree with President Harold B. Lee when he said the witness of the Holy Spirit is more powerful than any physical witness humankind could have that there is a loving God in heaven; a Heavenly Father who cares about us and wants us to be happy.
Everyone feels the Spirit differently. For me, I know something is true when it just makes sense; there's just a feeling that it's right. I sometimes also get a tingling warm feeling confirming that it's right.
One of the best things about God is He is no respecter of persons. That means that no matter who you are, He loves you and He will make Himself and His will known to you if you sincerely seek for it. It doesn't always come right away---actually in my experience, it almost never comes right away. God likes it when we take a few actions on our own because that demonstrates our willingness to believe in Him and trust Him. But in His perfect timing, He will eventually answer you. I know because it happened to me.
Because life is hard and inevitably wears me down, I have to continually seek Him through prayer, the scriptures, and the Spirit. I have to remember the experiences I've had with Him in the past as well as have new ones. I think that's the key to keeping our triangle of faith---and our relationship with God---strong.
