Faith to Move Mountains

One of the invitations from President Nelson in this most recent general conference was to “seek and expect miracles.” He said this: “In the same way, the Lord will bless you with miracles if you believe in Him, ‘doubting nothing.’ Do the spiritual work to seek miracles. Prayerfully ask God to help you exercise that kind of faith. I promise that you can experience for yourself that Jesus Christ ‘giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.’ Few things will accelerate your spiritual momentum more than realizing the Lord is helping you to move a mountain in your life.” This reminds me of the Lord’s words to Moroni in connection with the story of the brother of Jared: “And in that day that they shall exercise faith in me, saith the Lord, even as the brother of Jared did, that they may become sanctified in me, then will I manifest unto them the things which the brother of Jared saw, even to the unfolding unto them all my revelations, saith Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Father of the heavens and of the earth, and all things that in them are” (Ether 4:7). The Lord wants us to show forth the same kind of faith as the brother of Jared. What did the brother of Jared do? He “said unto the mount Zerin, Remove—and it was removed. And if he had not had faith it would not have moved.” He climbed the mount Shelem to seek the Lord’s help in crossing the ocean, and so great was his faith that “he could not be kept from beholding within the veil.” The Lord said of him, “Never has man come before me with such exceeding faith as thou hast” (Ether 3:9, 19). He subsequently then was able to cross that great ocean with their eight barges which carried them to the promised land. So as we seek miracles of the Lord in our lives we should remember the brother of Jared and how he moved a literal mountain, climbed another mountain to commune with God, and successfully crossed an ocean filled with “mountain waves which broke upon them” (Ether 6:6). His story should be encouragement to all of us that we can move the mountains in our lives through our faith in Jesus Christ.

               President Nelson also encouraged us to develop the faith necessary to move mountains in another conference talk last year: “My dear brothers and sisters, my call to you this Easter morning is to start today to increase your faith. Through your faith, Jesus Christ will increase your ability to move the mountains in your life, even though your personal challenges may loom as large as Mount Everest.” He testified of the Savior’s power to help us: “He paid the compensatory price and provided the power for you to move every mountain you will ever face. You obtain that power with your faith, trust, and willingness to follow Him…. Only your unbelief will keep God from blessing you with miracles to move the mountains in your life.” If we want His power to help us move mountains we must work on increasing our faith in Jesus Christ. He commented several years ago, “When we speak of faith—the faith that can move mountains—we are not speaking of faith in general but of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.”  As we seek to follow President Nelson’s counsel to seek for and expect miracles, we must fix our focus firmly on the Savior and seek His help in whatever challenges we face.

               I love the story of the building of the Salt Lake Temple as told by Elder Holland in his classic talk However Long and Hard the Road. He recounted, “Getting the stone from mountain to city center was a nightmare. A canal on which to convey the stone was begun and a great deal of labor and money expended on it, but it was finally aborted. Other means were tried, but oxen proved to be the only viable means of transportation. In the 1860s and ’70s always four and often six oxen in a team could be seen almost any working day of the year, toiling and tugging and struggling to pull from the quarry one monstrous block of granite, or at most two of medium size…. The journals and histories of these teamsters are filled with accounts of broken axles, mud-mired animals, shattered sprockets, and shattered hopes. I do not have any evidence that these men swore, but surely they might have been seen turning a rather steely eye toward heaven. But they believed and kept pulling…. God was with these modern children of Israel, as he always has been and always will be. They did all they could do and left the rest in his hands. And the Red Sea parted before them, and they walked through on firm, dry ground. On 6 April 1892, the Saints as a body were nearly delirious. Now, finally, here in their own valley with their own hands they had cut out of the mountains a granite monument that was to mark, after all they had gone through, the safety of the Saints and the permanence of Christ’s true church on earth for this one last dispensation.” With four decades of toil they had literally moved a mountain—or at least part of one—and shaped it into what is still the largest of all of our temples. It stands as a “monument to Mormon perseverance” and is a sign that we all can indeed move literal and figurative mountains with our faith in Jesus Christ.