Faithful in the Delay

I love that the Come, Follow Me manual points out gospel principles that I wouldn’t recognize on my own. This week the principle that caught my attention revolved around the decision the Israelites made to make a golden calf to worship (Exodus:32:1-4) instead of keeping the covenants that they had just made (Exodus 24:7). Moses left camp and they didn't think he was coming back and instead of trusting in the covenant, they tried something different - which resulted in them breaking their covenants. Do we ever have similar experiences where we feel abandoned by the Lord? Perhaps we have health or family challenges, financial struggles, a crisis of faith, or we're negatively impacted by someone else's decisions in a way that make us feel that promised blessings are delayed. Elder Holland said "there will be times in our lives when even our best spiritual effort and earnest, pleading prayers do not yield the victories for which we have yearned." (Waiting on the Lord) What do we do during those times? Do we give up on God and look somewhere else for guidance? Or do we stay faithful to our covenants while practicing patience? One podcast I listened to this week (Follow Him) entitled this principle as being "faithful in the delay".

What does it look like to be faithful during these "delays" in our life? It "looks like" keeping our covenants and strengthening our relationship with Jesus Christ. In General Conference, Sister Bingham gave a wonderful list of what we can do to continually strengthen that relationship with Him. She said "pray with a humble heart, study and ponder the scriptures, take the sacrament with a spirit of repentance and reverence, strive to keep the commandments and follow the prophet's counsel...live the gospel in all our interactions, care for those in need by truly ministering [and] expressing love through simple service…share the good news of the gospel with those who need peace and strength...work to unite families for eternity on both sides of the veil...wear the sacred garment of the priesthood. These actions are not just an occasional splurge but are essential to our daily happiness-and eternal joy" (Covenants with God Strengthen, Protect, and Prepare Us for Eternal Glory)

In this last General Conference, Elder Christofferson shared this thought..."in the midst of this refiner's fire, rather than get angry with God, get close to God. Call upon the Father in the name of the Son. Walk with them in the Spirit, day by day. Allow Them over time to manifest Their fidelity to you. Come truly to know Them and truly to know yourself. Let God prevail." (Our Relationship with God)

“So while we work and wait together for the answers to some of our prayers, I offer you my apostolic promise that they are heard and they are answered, though perhaps not at the time or in the way we wanted. But they are always answered at the time and in the way an omniscient and eternally compassionate parent should answer them.” (Elder Holland, Waiting on the Lord) Hopefully we can all exercise faith during our mortal tests, trials and challenges and remain faithful to the Lord and our covenants during times of delay.