Light Entered In

Throughout our lives - and especially on our missions - we learn to follow the voice of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes that voice is a ray of sunshine that illuminates the path we are to take. Occasionally it will be persistent but most of the time it is a quiet whispering, a peaceful and gentle feeling, an impression on our mind and in our heart.

Just the other day, my companion and I were crossing a little street in Virginia. I was pondering and praying about where the Lord needed us to go for the last half hour of our evening. We had planned on visiting a couple of people but somehow that didn't feel right. The name of a woman in our ward came into my mind. I brushed it away because we had visited her home the night before and a couple of nights before that. Both times, no one had answered the door.
Her name continued to float its way into my mind. Finally I voiced my thoughts to my companion and after some discussion we decided that this was, indeed, the word of the Lord coming to me. We drove for several minutes and finally stopped in front of her home.

I prayed desperately that something would happen so that this wouldn't end up being a complete waste of our time and so that I would know if this had been an actual prompting of the Spirit.

We knocked and the door opened! The Lord had heard my prayer. He had also shown me that miracles would happen IF I was willing to act on any and all promptings that I might receive no matter how crazy or outlandish they seemed to be.

In General Conference, October 2007, Elder Richard G. Scott said, "The best way of finding truth is simply to go to the origin of all truth and ask or respond to inspiration." ("Truth: The Foundation of Correct Decisions")

Simply put: get on your knees and pray and then get onto your feet and act.

Faith is a principle of action and power. On page 641 of the Bible Dictionary, it states, "Faith in Jesus Christ is the first principle of the gospel and is more than belief, since true faith always moves its possessor to some kind of physical and mental action..." That means that, like James said, "...faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone." (James 2:17) If we are not acting on the belief that we have, we will begin to lose it.

I prayed for help to exercise faith. I was scared and didn't know if I was doing the right thing when we knocked on that sister's door. Yet as we act, just like the sun after a storm, light enters in and helps us to recognize that the Lord will never lead us astray. In fact, His Spirit will only direct
us in paths of truth and righteousness as we act on the faith that we already have.