Confidence in Christ

One of the things that my wife and I struggle with as parents is helping our children develop confidence in themselves and in the Lord’s ability to help them.  The scriptures make it clear that we should trust in the Lord’s power to help us do anything we need to do in this life.  Paul said, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13).  He accomplished an incredible work as a missionary because he had such implicit confidence in his abilities through the Lord.  King Lamoni after his conversion developed a similar level of confidence, at least in Ammon’s abilities, for he told his missionary: “I know, in the strength of the Lord thou canst do all things” (Alma 20:4).  The Savior taught His apostles this principle near the end of His life, reassuring them that they could bring forth much fruit in the gospel through Him: “He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing…. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you” (John 15:7).  The Savior’s promise is that we can do a great work if we abide in Him.  Moroni summarized this principle at the end of the Book of Mormon from the Savior in these words, “And Christ truly said unto our fathers: If ye have faith ye can do all things which are expedient unto me” (Moroni 10:23).

               Nephi was another who had this kind of trust in the Lord’s ability to help him do anything.  When his brothers disbelieved they could get the plates from Laban, he declared, “Let us go up again unto Jerusalem, and let us be faithful in keeping the commandments of the Lord; for behold he is mightier than all the earth, then why not mightier than Laban and his fifty, yea, or even than his tens of thousands? Therefore let us go up; let us be strong like unto Moses” (1 Nephi 4:1-2).  Even the risk of death didn’t deter him from trusting in the Lord’s power to help him get the plates.  Later when he was commanded to build the ship, he declared to his brothers who doubted his capabilities, “If God had commanded me to do all things I could do them. If he should command me that I should say unto this water, be thou earth, it should be earth; and if I should say it, it would be done. And now, if the Lord has such great power, and has wrought so many miracles among the children of men, how is it that he cannot instruct me, that I should build a ship?” (1 Nephi 17:50-51)  That is confidence and trust in the Lord—Nephi was sure he could do anything that was required of him by the Lord.

               So how do we gain that kind of confidence and help others do the same?  How do we develop the belief in ourselves like Nephi that we can accomplish great things that the Lord wants us to?  There are surely multiple answers to that question, but it seems to me that for Nephi the most important ingredient to his confidence was communion with the Lord.  As I wrote about yesterday, unlike his brothers he went to the Lord in fervent prayer for a knowledge that his father’s visions were true. The Lord visited him, softened his heart, and he gained a witness of the Spirit that what they were doing was indeed the will of the Lord.  Surely that knowledge gave him the confidence that if it was the Lord’s desires, he could do it.  This is consistent with what Joseph Smith taught in the Lectures on Faith, that to have true faith we need to understand that “the course of life which [one] is pursuing is according to [God’s] will.”  When we have paid the price through prayer and diligently seeking to know that we are doing what God wants us to be doing, then I believe we can have the confidence and faith that Nephi had.  And surely that is what we need to teach our children as we seek to help them develop confidence: they must learn to really pray and hear the voice of the Lord reassuring them of their worth and important mission here on earth.  Then they will know, like Paul, that with the help of God they can do all things.