Continuing from Bruce C. Hafen and his book ‘Spiritually Anchored in Unsettled Times’:
I have also noticed a tendency among some Church members, especially younger ones, to see testimony and inspiration as primarily a good feeling. Feelings are especially important when they come as an actual confirmation or another evidence of truth. That confirmation is essential to our spiritual balance. But in addition to our feelings, a well-grounded testimony also includes other important elements, such as experience and reason. Feeling itself has a thin root system that is too shallow to support a fully developed testimony, especially when confronting hard questions, adversity or people who might try to manipulate our feelings. An overemphasis on feeling alone runs the risk of creating a fair-weather faith that is “all sail and no anchor.”2
Another Challenge that asks for deeper anchoring is that many of us, despite our good intentions, simply get stuck along the growth path of becoming true followers of Christ, and our personal development slows to a halt even though we remain active in the Church. In today’s option-overdosed world, some get stuck simply because of distractions—being diverted from a serious quest by any number of enticing but often trivial side canyons. Distractions can stop our serious progress as effectively as a conscious choice to quit moving. Some grind to a halt under the weight of overload and exhaustion. Others may begin to care more about being comfortable than about growing—perhaps because growth is too often accompanied by growing pains and stretch marks.
We wouldn’t lose momentum in these ways if more of us could live every day as truly consecrated disciples of Christ, rather than just being active in Church. Those who are well-intentioned but stuck in mere activity wonder why the joy of the journey has waned, perhaps without realizing that they have stopped growing spiritually. When the growth stops, so does the stops, so does the joy.
The idea of being active but missing the joy echos Aldous Huxley’s phrase about those who want “Christianity without tears.”3 That kind of Christianity spares its adherents the tears of sorrow, but, by definition it also removes the tears of true joy. That is a Garden of Eden kind of Christianity, where one remains “in a state of innocence [and undisturbed comfort] having no joy, for they knew no misery,” (2 Nephi 2:23).
Whatever the reason for our lost momentum, it isn’t enough to just go through the motions—we must be in motion. We can’t move toward a sanctified state of faithfulness just by checking an attendance box, because our spiritual growth is a developmental process not a yes-or-no event. The power to keep moving can and must originate in an internal motivation that is anchored enough in our own authentic testimony to reignite our motion again and again, overcoming the inertia that hold us back and returning us to our desired course. When we exert enough spiritual energy to move closer to the Savior, the good news is that He then moves closer to us more than doubling our motion by joining with His.
These three issues—testimony, uncertainty, and the distinction of being active and being truly consecrated—have a common core. A shallow testimony is often linked with being vulnerable to the risks of uncertainty, and those who experience both are more likely to assume that mere activity is the point of Church membership. They may not even conscious of the distinction between being active and being consecrated.
No matter what tempest tosses us most upon life’s seas, even when our “ship is covered with the waves,” becoming more deeply anchored in the spiritual foundations of Christ’s true followers will bless, energize, and change us as we journey toward the eternal presence of Him whom “even the winds and the sea obey” (Matthew 8:24, 27).
Bruce C. Hafen, Spiritually Anchored in Unsettled Times, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2009). 3-5
