"Help Thou Mine Unbelief"

Today I was the teacher in Relief Society, the women's class at church, and the lesson topic was Elder Uchtdorf's talk from general conference, "Believe, Love, Do." I prepared a study sheet for each woman in the class, to help them be introspective and apply his teachings to them personally and make action goals to help them tackle their own personal challenges. On one side of the sheet there were four boxes with labels:

1) My Deepest Heartache & Struggle

2) My Struggle to Believe

3) My Struggle to Love and Serve

4) The Spiritual Work I neglect. 

I asked the sisters to begin by being thoughtful and introspective in filling out these boxes. I read to them from 2 Nephi 4:18: "I am encompassed about, because of the temptation and sins which do so easily beset me," And asked them to think of those things in their lives that they continually struggle against, and with, whether they are sins, weaknesses, or circumstances, and to write down the one that they desire most to be rid of, or to be able to endure, through greater faith. I then asked them to write down their primary struggles and stumbling-blocks as it pertains to the three areas Elder Uchtdorf speaks about, Belief, Love, and Do (Obey). 

After the women in the class had spent sometime identifying their personal challenges I had them turn the sheet over where there were four more boxes. They were labeled:

1) My Deepest Desire for Change & Healing

2) "Help Thou Mine Unbelief"

3) "That Ye May Be Filled with This Love"

4) Nourishment and Strength in Obedience

I then broke the class into three groups and had each group read a different section of the talk, Believe, Love, Do, and record in the corresponding boxes the principles, action words, or ideas that they found in the talk or thought of while reading the talk. The front side of the worksheet was where they expressed their heartaches and challenges and the backside where they were to find help in overcoming them.

During this exercise it seemed that it was in the "Believe" category that class members struggled the most to identify a stumbling-block or challenge related to their belief. I too struggled to identify a full list of ways in which unbelief is a stumbling block. It dawned on me that this principle of belief if not fully understood it would be hard for members of the class to connect the principle of belief to the principles of LOVE an DO.

Elder Uchtdorf's words mainly focused on those impediments to belief that come from doubting the existence or personal presence and care of God, but in my experience I have observed that there are other more subtle stumbling-blocks to belief and faith in God. During the class, and our learning exercise with the study sheet I had prepared, I described the different types of struggles that fall into our lack of belief, or lack of faith. I referenced the story in Mark of the father whose child was seriously ill and he sought the Lord to heal him. Jesus said unto him, "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth." The father cried out through his tears, "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief." (Mark 9:24). I wanted each of us to ponder whether after our initial certainty we have not realized that our faith or belief is lacking in some way.

I believe we are all this man at sometime in our lives, and for some we may feel this as this father felt often. As sincere striving saints our immediate thought to the question, "Do you believe?" Is an affirmative: "Lord, I believe!!" But when we take a second thought, a more introspective look at our hearts, we often realize that our belief, our faith, is lacking. With the life of his daughter on the line this man in tears answers the Lord with an honest heart saying, "Lord, 'help thou mine unbelief.'" This was true honesty from a man standing in the presence of the Son of God and Savior of the world. In his humble honesty he thought only to ask the Lord to help his weakness, to make up the difference for what he lacked, and from the result of the story, this was enough for the Lord to heal his child.

Like this father we are each struggling in someway to change, forsake sin, love others, serve, etc., and like this father our struggling is because of a weakness in our belief, a lack of faith in some form. Jesus taught that if we have faith like a mustard seed we could move mountains, and "nothing shall be impossible unto you." (Matthew 17:20) With the understanding that God will not give that which is not his will to give, so far as we seek to know and do God's will in all things and that we "ask not amiss," (2 Nephi 4:35) we will receive what we ask for in faith. If we lack something, if we need to improve in some area, then the place to start is to strengthen our belief and faith that Christ, for He is able to make us sufficiently strong to overcome all things.

Even when we don't struggle to believe that we have a Heavenly Father, that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the World, and that the Holy Ghost can guide us, we may be struggling to believe that he can change us, that he can strengthen us, and that we will overcome through Him. This is why, as Elder Uchtdorf says, belief is first in becoming a true disciple of Jesus Christ. Belief is requisite to both LOVE and DO. Through our belief and acting upon that belief in faith, we acquire the gifts of faith, hope, and charity. which are gifts of the Spirit.

As a sister in my class expressed today, I have often thought to myself, "I have always believed in God, I have always known my Heavenly Father is there and that Jesus is my Savior," and for far too many years I have looked at my struggles to love, to serve, and to be obedient as different matters, matters unconnected to belief. I saw myself as weak, but not my belief as weak. I was wrong, it is because my belief is weak that I am weak. I believe that gaining more awareness for how my belief is weak has helped me to know better how to pray, how to exercise the faith I do have in a more powerful way. The deepening of belief begins with more humility to answer the Lord, "Help though mine unbelief." If I had realized this truth sooner I would have seen the miracle of God's transformative power working more fully in my life. Only in more recent years have I begun to understand this principle and more fully receive Christ's extraordinary power working to change me.

I know that if we "believe in God... believe that he has... all power..." (Mosiah 4:9) that "the Lord is able to do all things according to his will, for the children of men..." (1 Nephi 7:12), if we humble ourselves, daily striving through mighty prayer and fasting, our faith will invite sufficient power into our lives to bring a "might change of heart;" so mighty that we will have "no more disposition to do evil" -- may I substitute a more apt word for the sincere striving saints of God -- "no more disposition to [be slothful]... but to do good continually." (Mosiah 5:2) This is the what I believe Elder Uchtdorf means by being true disciples of Jesus Christ. This is the true conversion I seek. This is the change I long for and I know that it will come as I continue to pray to God for with all the energy my heart for the gifts of increased faith, hope, and charity.