From Richard L. Evans:
We hear much concerning the subject of faith: “that it will move mountains 119, that it is the evidence of things not seen 120,” that with it all things are possible. And altogether all we learn of it leads us to know that faith is indeed a great and desirable gift.
But suppose someone doesn’t have faith. Suppose they want to believe but they don’t know how to go about beginning to believe. We must frankly face the fact that it seems easier for some to believe than it does for others. And so comes the question: How does a person go about to begin to believe?
First of all, it would seem that they must want to. It is hard for an utterly unwilling person to begin to believe. But everyone lives more by faith than is sometimes supposed. Every person who looks ahead in life, who makes any plan for the future, is doing so partly on faith, for no one knows how much future there is within the limits of their life.
Everyone who steps into any kind of conveyance is, in a sense, declaring his faith, for they thereby commit themselves to some uncertain circumstance. In a similar sense, every person who takes a prescription or submits themselves to surgery shows some faith. Any person who eats food which they have not processed or prepared is proceeding in part on faith.
Everyone who makes an investment has faith. Everyone who travels to a country they haven’t seen has faith—faith that they will find it. Everyone who counts on anything beyond this very instant, has a kind of faith within them.
Of course, this isn’t the kind of faith implied in some discussions of the subject; but neither, in fact, is it so far from it—for if one can believe in some things unseen, they ought also to be able to believe in other things unseen.
We have to trust the Lord God for so many things—for life, for food, for rainfall, for the succession of seasons, for all that pertains to tomorrow. For everything that isn’t past or present we have to have faith. So everyone has much more faith than is sometimes supposed and can have yet much more, for “faith is not to have a perfect knowledge.”121 But it comes or increases with wanting to, with working for, with a willingness to begin to believe, to keep the commandments, to test the promises, to prove the principles, to proceed with faithful performance, for “by faithfulness faith is earned.”122 As summarized in a sentence from the Savior: “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine.”123 ~Richard L. Evans, From the Crossroads (Harper & Brothers, Publishers, New York), 225-26 (language modernized)
119. – Matthew 17:20, 120. – Hebrews 11:1, 121. – Book of Mormon, Alma 32;21, 122. Henry D. Thoreau: writings of Henry David Thoreau, Vol, 6
