God of Miracles

Trevor and I are taking the church's Personal Finance course (part of the Self Reliance offerings) and we are loving it so far!

This week, we studied the principle of exercising faith in the Savior. (We begin each class by studying a gospel principle, and then we connect that principle to finances.) Part of our homework was to go home and study certain stories from the scriptures, including Daniel and the lion's den, and Elijah and the widow of Zarephath.

What struck me as I read these stories is how easily we mortals can be blinded by our own wisdom. God is all powerful. He created the world and it does His bidding. He knows the end from the beginning.

But sometimes, I think we forget that. Sometimes I find myself falling into the trap of not trusting His word, because I can't see how it will come true.

I look at the story of the widow of Zarephath. Her country was in famine. She only had enough food left to feed herself and her son one last time, and there was no hope of more food coming. She was prepared to cook one last meal, and then starve.

And then Elijah came to her. I don't think she knew him before this--but he came and asked her to feed him some bread. She told him of her desperate circumstances, but he told her--go and make him a little cake first, then feed herself and her son. If she would do this, her food supply would last her until the famine ended.

How much faith did it take for her to act on his word? But she did, and that little bit of food she had left miraculously never failed. She and her son survived the famine.

I look at her example and wonder, would I have her faith in that situation? Or would I rely on my senses and my past experience and say that of course, I couldn't do this. I hardly had enough food for one last meal and nothing he did would stretch it to make it last longer. If I lacked her faith... I wouldn't have received the life saving blessing she received.

I will never know what I would do in her place, but I can do my best to follow her example in my life. I can work on trusting the Lord, even if with my mortal eyes, I can't see a path before me that leads to the end He's promised. I am ashamed to look back and acknowledge that I lost faith in His promises to me that I would find the right man eventually and get married. It took so much longer for Trevor to appear than I expected that my faith faltered. But he did appear, and I would have been so much happier if I had just trusted in God's word all along. I need to remember that for my challenges in the future! I may not see the way to get through them, but God does, and if I rely on Him, He will lead me.