"Learning By Faith"
Brother R. Kelly Haws
July 21, 2021
Heaven’s Office Hours
Brother and Sister Lund, President and Sister Eyring, family, and guests, welcome! And to each of you remarkable graduates, congratulations!
"Learning by faith"
You’ve read thousands of pages and attended hundreds of classes to get here today. Try to contain your bereavement, but you’re going to wake up tomorrow morning and you won’t have a paper to write, a chapter to read, or a single test to take.
It’s hard to imagine college without tests and quizzes. And it’s impossible to imagine the days leading up to the Savior’s second coming without them. Tests of will. Tests of faith. “Tests in the school of mortality” [1] to see if we will remain on the covenant path. [2]
In college, your professors had office hours. It is your good fortune; there are no office hours posted on the door to heaven. Heavenly Father is always available for your questions.
Learning by Faith
You’ve spent your college years mastering the first half of the Lord’s injunction to, “seek learning . . . by study.” [3]
Much of learning by study utilizes what we know as the scientific method. Because there are some things which we don’t know for certain, the scientific method is used to help us control for bias and erroneous conclusions by hypothesizing and carefully testing before committing to a result. In other words, we learn and then we commit.
There is another kind of learning which is required of us if we are to find answers to tomorrow’s tests. Like learning by study, learning by faith also requires outstanding scholarship. However, in matters of eternity, in matters of the spirit, in matters of God, the order is often quite different. We commit first, then we learn more.
There was a time when President Boyd K. Packer was facing a challenging personal decision and couldn’t figure out the way forward. He recounts his experience speaking to a fellow member of the Quorum of the Twelve who said, “’The trouble with you is you want to see the end from the beginning.’ [President Packer replied], ‘I would like to see at least a step or two ahead.’ Then came the lesson of a lifetime: ‘You must learn to walk to the edge of the light, and then a few steps into the darkness; then the light will appear and show the way before you.’” [4]
In the Book of Mormon, “Ether did prophesy great and marvelous things unto the people, which they did not believe, because they saw them not. . . .” [5] And Paul added, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” [6]
Be very careful if you find yourself persuaded by those who promote that “[you] cannot know of things which [you] do not see” [7] or that it is somehow foolish to obey before one fully understands. [8] In spiritual things, the burden of proof is not on God. The burden of proof is on us. We will find that Heavenly Father will speak more frequently and more clearly the more we believe, commit, and obey.
That is how we learn by faith. We act on the assurance of God’s word, His promises, and the hope we have because of the Savior. Every one of us already has evidence of things we haven’t yet seen! [9]
Elder Paul V. Johnson said, “This pattern is crucial [for each of us] to understand if [we] have questions about spiritual things. We can make the mistake of trying to resolve doubts about spiritual things by leaning exclusively on intellectual answers.” [10]
A Scottish religionist and contemporary of Joseph Smith said, “You cannot think a spiritual muddle clear; you have to obey it clear. In intellectual matters you can think things out, but in spiritual matters you will think yourself into cotton wool. If there is something upon which God has put His pressure . . . bring your imagination into captivity to the obedience of Christ with regard to it and everything will become as clear as daylight.” [11]
So, when you are confronted with one of mortality’s tests or society’s questions which keeps you up late or has you up early, when you discover a piece of old Church history or a teaching from the modern prophets which you don’t understand yet, when your personal life takes a twist or proceeds at an undesired pace or sequence, believe anyway, commit anyway, obey the confusion clear by acting on the evidence of things we haven’t seen yet.
In His infinite wisdom, Heavenly Father has carefully placed comforting and confidence-giving assurance after acting in faith. [12]
Elder Bednar explained that “[acting] upon the assurance of things hoped for . . . invites the evidence of things not seen.” [13] And President Harold B. Lee added, “[Learning by faith is not] an easy or lazy way to gain knowledge . . . learning by faith requires the bending of the whole soul.” [14]
The bending of the whole soul? I was in college in one form or another for more than 15 years.
Notwithstanding my labors in classes on macroeconomics, anatomy, and cosmology, I’m not sure the work I put in ever constituted, “bending my whole soul.”
I can tell you however, when someone I love questions God, is mired in sin, or contemplating a course which they think will make them happier than Heavenly Father’s great plan of happiness, [15] those tests bend my whole soul. And they either have or will or should bend your whole soul as well. And learning to learn by faith will be even more important than what you have learned about learning by study.
A Similitude
Sometimes, brothers and sisters, it will simply have to be enough to follow the example of Adam and Eve. You’ll remember that Adam and Eve were commanded to worship God by offering as sacrifice the firstlings of their flocks. There will be times when we too are asked to give of our “firstlings,” in the form of our prime time, hard-earned means, or perhaps most difficult of all, our will.
Upon hearing the angel’s question, “Why dost thou offer sacrifices unto the Lord?” Adam’s response is, “I know not, save the Lord commanded me.” [16]
The willingness of Adam and Eve to obey simply because it was Heavenly Father’s will was a similitude of the Savior’s sacrifice, [17] and so it will be for you each time you choose to believe and obey simply because of your faith.
Just like in college, tomorrow’s tests will most definitely keep you busy late into the night and will often find you up and on your knees before the lights are on in any other house in the neighborhood. The questions begging for answers will require us to “seek learning, even by study and also by faith,” [18] because if we simply rely on one-sentence memes or social media shallowness for truth, we will almost always find ourselves either short of or beyond the mark. [19] We all know, “the mark is Christ.” [20]
The secret to learning by faith reveals itself in the Garden of Gethsemane where the Savior Himself was astonished, [21] desired to withdraw, [22] and yet still obeyed. [23]
And so, we willingly and gratefully worship. We believe, we commit, and we “stay in the boat,” [24] even when the cleverness, the rhetoric, or the reasoning of others seems persuasive. [25]
“Faithfulness is not foolishness or fanaticism,” said Elder Bednar, “it is trusting and placing our confidence in Jesus Christ.” [26] I join each of you in willingly trusting and following the only person upon whose merits we can wholly rely [27] with perfect confidence. In the holy and redeeming name of Jesus Christ, amen.
[1] David A. Bednar, “We Will Prove Them Herewith,” Ensign, Nov. 2020.
[2] See Russell M. Nelson, “A Message from the First Presidency,” Jan. 16, 2018.
[3] Doctrine and Covenants 88:118.
[4] Boyd K. Packer, “The Edge of the Light,” Y Magazine, Mar. 1991, magazine.byu.edu; see also “Move Forward in Faith,” Ensign, Aug. 2013.
[5] Ether 12:5, emphasis added.
[6] JST Hebrews 11:1, emphasis added.
[7] Alma 30:15.
[8] See Alma 30:23–28.
[9] See Alma 30:44; Moses 6:63; Hebrews 12:1; Doctrine and Covenants 20:9–11.
[10] Paul. V. Johnson, “A Pattern for Learning Spiritual Things,” Seminaries and Institutes of Religion Satellite Broadcast, Aug. 7, 2012.
[11] Oswald Chambers, “My Utmost for His Highest,” Imagination verses Inspiration devotional, Sept. 14.
[12] See Ether 12; Hebrews 11; Boyd K. Packer, “The Candle of the Lord,” Ensign, Jan. 1983.
[13] David A. Bednar, “Seek Learning by Faith,” Address to Church Educational System Educators, Feb. 3, 2006.
[14] Harold B. Lee, “The Iron Rod ,” Ensign, May 1971.
[15] Alma 42:8.
[16] Moses 5:6.
[17] See Moses 5:7.
[18] Doctrine and Covenants 88:118, emphasis added.
[19] See Jacob 4:14.
[20] Quentin L. Cook, “Looking Beyond the Mark,” Ensign, Mar. 2003.
[21] See Mark 14:33 Footnote.
[22] See Luke 22:42.
[23] See Doctrine and Covenants 19:19.
[24] M. Russell Ballard, “Stay in the Boat and Hold On! ,” Ensign, Nov. 2014.
[25] See 1 Nephi 8:27–28.
[26] David A. Bednar, “We Will Prove Them Herewith,” Ensign, Nov. 2020.
[27] 2 Nephi 31:19.