Faith in Every Footstep

In the second session of this most recent general conference the choir sang one of my favorite songs, Faith in Every Footstep, about the pioneers. In it are these words of the chorus: “With faith in every footstep, we follow Christ, the Lord, And filled with hope through his pure love, we sing with one accord.” Those thousands of pioneers who walked across the plains, many under terrible circumstances, did so with faith in the Lord as their motivation. We do not look back with awe and remember the pioneers because they suffered the most of any group—many others have similarly suffered or even worse. We revere them and speak of them and remember their stories because they taught us how to work through suffering by walking forward with faith in Christ. As a whole they never lost hope even when they were freezing and starving and dying. Paul declared, “For we walk by faith, not by sight” and surely that is how they literally walked mile after mile, not knowing what was ahead of them (2 Corinthians 5:7). And so we sing of them and strive to similarly have faith through our trials, knowing that we must figuratively walk with faith through the challenges we face in our day.

                After the choir sang this song, President Ballard spoke and referred to it. He declared, “Brothers and sisters, I testify that as we follow Jesus Christ with footsteps of faith, there is hope. There is hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. There is hope for all in this life. There is hope to overcome our mistakes, our sorrows, our struggles, and our trials and our troubles. There is hope in repentance and being forgiven and in forgiving others. I testify that there is hope and peace in Christ. He can carry us today through difficult times. He did it for the early pioneers, and He will do it now for each one of us.” He also made this statement worthy of much reflection: “Early pioneers faced many obstacles as they came by wagons, handcarts, and walking to the Salt Lake Valley. We too will face challenges in our individual journeys through our lives. We are not pushing handcarts or driving covered wagons over steep mountains and through deep snowdrifts; we are trying as they did to spiritually overcome the temptations and challenges of our day. We have trails to walk; we have hills—and sometimes mountains—to climb. Although the trials today are different than those of the early pioneers, they are no less challenging for us.” Knowing some of the terrible physical hardships they faced, I’m not sure whether this idea that our trials today will be as challenging as theirs were should give us  comfort because they made it through or if it should make us nervous to think of what might be ahead for us. Either way, clearly we need to keep remembering the kind of faith that they exhibited in the Savior to keep going when life was very difficult.   

                In the revelation given to the Saints through the prophet Brigham Young as they were in the process of crossing the plains, the Lord said this: “My people must be tried in all things, that they may be prepared to receive the glory that I have for them, even the glory of Zion; and he that will not bear chastisement is not worthy of my kingdom” (Doctrine and Covenants 136:31). They were tried and proved faithful, and now it is our time to be tried in different ways and show the Lord that we too can keep walking with faith in Christ in every footstep.