In recent years I have met with a surprising number of college students who are burdened with doubt and are on the verge of throwing in the towel and leaving the Church. Some wrestle with Church history issues, while many struggle with doctrinal matters. In every case, however, the person has allowed his or her questions to morph into doubts, a process that really is not necessary. As Elder John A. Widtsoe pointed out, each of us will have questions so long as we are thinking, reflective human beings. Questions are a part of life, a vital part of growing in truth and understanding. But doubt should be only a temporary condition, a state that is resolved either through the serious pursuit and investigation of the matter under consideration ”resulting in acquisition of new knowledge by study or by faith”or in a settled determination to place the question "on the shelf" for the time being, at least until new insights or perspectives are forthcoming.
"Doubt is a perennial problem in the life of faith," Oxford theologian Alister McGrath observed. "Doubt reflects our inability to be absolutely certain about what we believe. As Paul reminds us, we walk by faith, not by sight' (2 Corinthians 5:7), which has the inevitable result that we cannot prove every aspect of our faith. This should not disturb us too much. After all, what is there in life that we can be absolutely certain about? We can be sure that 2 + 2 = 4, but that is hardly going to change our lives. The simple fact of life is that everything worth believing in goes beyond what we can be absolutely sure about."
That forward pursuit in which we do not allow the unknown to distract or beset us, is called faith. Faith is in fact the antidote to doubt, the answer to skepticism, the solution to cynicism. It is, as Alma explained, "the hope for things which are not seen, which are true" (Alma 32:21), an "anchor to the souls of men which [makes] them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God" (Ether 12:4). I would like to pursue two avenues of dealing with doubt: learning to manage the "seasons of unrest" in our lives and taking the distant view as prerequisite to eventually seeing things as they really are.
Times of Darkness
"The gift of the Holy Ghost is the right to the constant companionship of the third member of the Godhead, based upon our faithfulness." That's a definition of the gift of the Holy Ghost that I have heard hundreds of times. The constant companionship. Constant! That word is a bit forbidding. Why? Because I know by personal experience that I do not enjoy a constant flow of revelation, a constant effusion of discernment, a constant sense of comfort and confidence, or a constant outpouring of light and peace and joy.
"The wind bloweth where it listeth," Jesus said to Nicodemus, "and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8). The word translated here as wind is the Greek word pneuma, which may also (as in Hebrew) be rendered as breath or spirit. It is as if Jesus had said, "The Spirit goes where it will, and you can hear the sound [also rendered as voice] but you cannot always tell where it came from or where it is going. So it is with each person who has been born again." For one thing, the Spirit of God is not under our immediate direction or control. It cannot be called here or sent there according to human whim. It cannot be manufactured, elicited, or produced whenever we as humans desire to do so. We can certainly set the stage: we can prepare properly, listen to uplifting music, search the scriptures, pray, and ask humbly for its sweet influence, but we cannot presume upon the motions or movement of this sacred spiritual endowment. "You cannot force spiritual things," Elder Boyd K. Packer explained. "Such words as compel, coerce, constrain, pressure, demand do not describe our privileges with the Spirit. You can no more force the Spirit to respond than you can force a bean to sprout, or an egg to hatch before its time. You can create a climate to foster growth; you can nourish, and protect; but you cannot force or compel: You must await the growth."
Clearly you and I will not enjoy the Spirit's prompting or peace if we are guilty of unrepentant sin, or if we persist in living well beneath our spiritual privileges. I'm sure all of us understand this. What is not so readily understood is that the power of the Holy Ghost may come and go, in terms of its intensity and its evident involvement in our lives. What President Harold B. Lee taught about testimony is true with respect to the work of the Comforter. He explained that our testimony today will not be our testimony tomorrow; a testimony is as fragile as an orchid, he said, as elusive as a moon beam. In plain words, we should take heart when we do not feel the presence of the Holy Ghost with the same magnitude on a regular, ongoing basis.
In October of 2000 I experienced something I had never undergone before I went into a deep depression for several months. Oh, I had had a bad day here and there, had known frustration and disillusionment like everyone else, but I had never been trapped by the tentacles of clinical depression so severely that I simply could not be comforted and could not see the light at the end of the tunnel. For days at a time I only wanted to sleep or gaze at the walls or be alone. For weeks I felt as though I was in a closed casket, a prison cell that allowed no light or sound whatever. I prayed. Oh, how I prayed for deliverance. I sought for and received priesthood blessings. I counseled with others of my friends who had known this kind of pain and alienation from firsthand experience.
During those weeks of suffering, for some reason I had great difficulty feeling the Spirit. In my head I knew that I was "worthy," in the sense that I was striving to live in harmony with the teachings of the Savior, but I simply did not feel the peace and joy and divine approbation that I had come to expect and cherish. I knew in my mind, in my heart of hearts that the Lord was pleased with my life, but I did not feel close to God as I had felt only days and weeks before. This experience, which, by the way, passed within a short period of months, taught me something that was and is extremely valuable, namely, it is one thing to have the Spirit of the Lord with us, even the "constant companionship of that member of the Godhead" and another to always feel that influence. Many if not most times that the Spirit is enlightening us, we feel it. Many if not most times that we are being divinely led, we are very much aware of it. But there are occasions when the Holy Ghost empowers our words or directs our paths and we, like the Lamanites who had been taught by Helaman's sons (Nephi and Lehi), enjoy a mighty spiritual experience and know it not (3 Nephi 9:20). That is to say, there is a mental or intellectual component to spiritual living that is in many ways just as important as the emotional component. Sometimes God tells us in our minds, sometimes in our hearts, and sometimes both (see D&C 8:2-3; 128:1).
Mother Teresa's Struggle
Each of us, at different times in life, encounters what we might call "seasons of unrest." During these periods of time, we do not feel close to our Lord, may feel unworthy, almost as though God has turned his back on us. Sometimes we find ourselves filled with questions and perhaps even doubts. There are remarkable lessons to be learned from the saintly woman who came to be known to the world simply as Mother Teresa of Calcutta. This slight but spiritually sensitive soul, born in 1910, determined early in life that she wanted to serve her Lord and Savior through loving and caring for the "poorest of the poor" in India.
In 1948 she received permission from her local authorities and from Rome to assume a different role as a nun, to go out into the streets, to visit the homes of the poor, the starving and emaciated, the sick and the dying, to deliver tenderness and food and love and a kindly word, including the word found in and through Jesus Christ. After establishing the congregation (ministry) known as the Missionaries of Charity in 1948 and being named as its overseer (under her local bishop), Mother Teresa's work expanded and grew to fill the earth, and the poorest of the poor in many lands began to receive the comfort and peace and sustenance and dignity to which each person is entitled as a child of God. She continued her work, driven and directed by that charity that flows from heaven, until her frail and spent body gave up the ghost in 1997 and left behind a legacy of love that will forevermore be celebrated. That's the story.
Let's now consider "the rest of the story," a poignant insight into her life that was not known by the public until 2007, the tenth anniversary of her death. A male member of the Missionaries of Charity published a book entitled Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (Doubleday, 2007) and made known, for the first time, most of her personal correspondence, and with that correspondence a secret she had carried in her heart for some fifty years. You see, in spite of a lifetime spent in the service of God and her fellow mortals; after decades of taxing and arduous labor and grueling hours devoted to the lower crust of society; and after almost fifty years of ministering to "the least of these" (Matthew 25:40), Mother Teresa had lived a life of pain, of emptiness, of spiritual alienation, of searching for comfort, of doubt and despair. The author explained that Mother Teresa strove to be that light of God's love in the lives of those who were experiencing darkness. For her, however, the paradoxical and totally unsuspected cost of her mission was that she herself would live in 'terrible darkness.' Mother Teresa wrote that since 1949 or 1950 'this terrible sense of loss this untold darkness this loneliness, this continual longing for God which gives me that pain deep down in my heart Darkness is such that I really do not see neither with my mind nor with my reason the place of God in my soul is blank ”There is no God in me when the pain of longing is so great I just long & long for God and then it is that I feel He does not want me He is not there. . . . The torture and pain I can't explain.'
Her unbearably long season of unrest actually caught her off guard; it was not something, in her wildest imaginations, she would have anticipated. And yet, in spite of it all, in spite of the doubt and the pain and the agony of loneliness in spite of what she did not feel she knew in her mind that God loved her, was reinforcing and upholding her, and would stand by her. In time she came to realize that her sufferings were divinely orchestrated by God to allow her to more closely identify with those with whom she spent her life: the lonely, the confused, the starving, the downtrodden, to allow her to know something of their pain. And with greater maturity she also came to know that her torturous personal agonies had been put in place to humble her, to drive her to her knees, to cause her to trust implicitly in the Lord Jesus Christ, and to allow her a glimpse into the nature of her Redeemer's passion, his alienation, his rejection, his emptiness during the hours of Gethsemane and Golgotha. She became a fellow traveler on the road of pain, one who participated in the fellowship of His suffering.
Mother Teresa certainly didn't live in the peace and solace and sweet refreshment that one would expect to be enjoyed by such a saintly person, but she was possessed of a faith in Jesus a total trust, a complete confidence, and a ready reliance upon his merits, mercy, and grace that transcended her bitter cup and enabled her to power to do her work and maintain her optimism and tender tutorials to her sisters and co-workers. "Cheerfulness," Mother Teresa wrote, "is a sign of a generous and mortified person who forgetting all things, even herself, tries to please her God in all she does for souls. Cheerfulness is often a cloak which hides a life of sacrifice, continual union with God, fervor and generosity."
David C. Steinmetz has written: "From time to time everyone endures a barren period in the life of faith. Prayers bounce off the ceiling unanswered. Hymns stick in one's throat, and whatever delight one once felt in the contemplation or worship of God withers away.
"In such circumstances Christians should 'do what is in them that is, they should keep on keeping on. They should keep on with their prayers, their hymns of praise and their daily round of duties. Even though it seems like they are walking through an immense and limitless desert with oases few and far between, they plod on, knowing that obedience is more important than emotional satisfaction and a right spirit than a merry heart.
"To such people, 'God does not deny grace.' They live in hope, however, that sooner or later the band will strike up a polka and the laughter and the dancing will start all over again. But if it does not, and it did not in Mother Teresa's case the grace that was in the beginning will be at the end as well. Of that, one can be sure. . . .
". . . She did not abandon the God who seemed to have abandoned her, as she very well might have done. By doubting vigorously but not surrendering to her doubts, she became a witness to a faith that did not fail and a hidden God who did not let her go. That is what sanctity is all about."
I still have my moments and days of depression that creep into my soul unexpectedly, times when I feel confined or overwhelmed, but I have learned to work through it, to keep on keeping on. And yes, there are those times when questions arise, hard questions whether challenges to our doctrine or instances in the history of the Church when I am stumped for a season or baffled for a time. But I will not give in to doubt or to fear. I know what I know, and I refuse to discard or cheapen what I know because of some miniscule matter that my limited understanding cannot explain for the time being. Eventually, as President Harold B. Lee used to teach, our minds will catch up with our hearts.
Elder Orson Pratt explained that if a person received direct heavenly guidance in every aspect of their lives, "where would be his trials? This would lead us to ask, Is it not absolutely necessary that God should in some measure, withhold even from those who walk before him in purity and integrity, a portion of his Spirit, that they may prove to themselves, their families and neighbors, and to the heavens whether they are full of integrity even in times when they have not so much of the Spirit to guide and influence them? I think that this is really necessary, consequently I do not know that we have any reason to complain of the darkness which occasionally hovers over the mind." Similarly, Elder Richard G. Scott stated that we should take heart when no answer comes after extended prayer. "Be thankful that God sometimes lets you struggle for a long time before that answer comes. Your character will grow; your faith will increase. . . . You may want to express thanks when that occurs, for it is an evidence of His trust."
On too many occasions the Spirit of the Living God has whispered truth to my heart, truth that my head did not yet comprehend. I can wait. Far too many manifestations of divine favor and confirmations of the truth coming through the Spirit and founded upon the rock of revelation have come into my mind and heart for me to trip over the pebbles of what I do not yet know. I will be patient. The Almighty has spoken in words and feelings that I cannot and dare not deny.
A Time of Decision
Decisions, when made in earnest, when made with one's whole heart, are extremely influential in our lives. I decided to be married to Shauna Sizemore in the Salt Lake Temple in 1971. I decided that I would love her, cherish her, pray for her, pray for us, provide for her, be a good example for her, and be attentive to her needs and deepest desires. Only she could say how well I have done that (and I have no plans to give out either my phone number or e-mail address!), but I have really tried to make her happy and secure. All of that because of a decision.
I decided when I was very young that I would observe the Word of Wisdom all my days, that I would abstain from alcohol, tobacco, coffee, tea, and habit-forming drugs. My wife and I made a decision, before we were married, that our marriage would indeed best be visualized as a triangle representing Shauna, Bob, and the Lord. Our individual lives and our marriage would belong to him. We decided that we would welcome children into our home, pay a full tithing, be active and involved in the Church and accept and magnify callings. We have been married now for a little less than forty years and, despite the challenges and pain and vicissitudes of life that inevitably come to every marriage, ours has been a happy union. We have had our differences, our disagreements, our diverse views on things, but the idea of throwing in the towel and choosing to divorce has never been an option. We feel the influence of that Holy Spirit of Promise, to whom it is given to bind and seal couples and families for eternity. We made an eternal decision. We have stuck with it. And that has made all the difference.
Thirty years ago a colleague and I were asked to read through, analyze, and look for patterns in a massive amount of anti-Mormon propaganda. It was drudgery. It was laborious. It carried a bitter and draining spirit, and consequently I had to just push my way through it to complete the assignment. After a period of addressing certain questions, my partner shook his head and indicated that the constant barrage of issue after issue was simply wearing him down, and that he wasn't sure he could stick with it. I suggested that we were almost done, that a few more hours of work would enable us to make our report. He stared at me for a moment and asked: "This isn't damaging to you, is it? I mean, you don't seem to be very upset by what we are reading." I assured my friend that there were obviously other things I would rather be doing, and that the hateful and contentious spirit did in fact weigh on me, but no, I wasn't particularly bothered by it. "Why?" he followed up. "I can't say for sure," I responded. "It's ugly but doesn't really affect my faith."
I sat with my wife in our living room as we watched the April 2007 general conference. I took notes that would help remind me and my students of what was said, at least until the May issue of the Ensign came out. During the Sunday morning session, Elder Neil L. Andersen began his remarks by relating the very touching story told by President Gordon B. Hinckley in the April 1973 conference of the young Asian who had joined the Church while in the military and now faced the sobering realities of ostracism by his family and foreclosure of future promotion in the military. "Are you willing to pay so great a price for the gospel?" President Hinckley asked. "With his dark eyes moistened by tears, he answered with a question: 'It's true, isn't it?' President Hinckley responded, 'Yes, it's true.' To which the officer replied, 'Then what else matters?'"
Elder Andersen continued: "The cause in which we are laboring is true. We respect the beliefs of our friends and neighbors. We are all sons and daughters of God. We can learn much from other men and women of faith and goodness. . . . "Yet we know that Jesus is the Christ. He is resurrected. In our day, through the Prophet Joseph Smith, the priesthood of God has been restored. We have the gift of the Holy Ghost. The Book of Mormon is what we claim it to be. The promises of the temple are certain. . . . It's true, isn't it? Then what else matters? . . .
"How do we find our way through the many things that matter?" Elder Andersen inquired. "We simplify and purify our perspective. Some things are evil and must be avoided; some things are nice; some things are important; and some things are absolutely essential." Then came the following words, words that have changed my life and provided answers to the question: Why doesn't anti-Mormonism affect my faith? "Faith is not only a feeling," Elder Andersen taught; "it is a decision. With prayer, study, obedience, and covenants, we build and fortify our faith. Our conviction of the Savior and His latter-day work becomes the powerful lens through which we judge all else. Then, as we find ourselves in the crucible of life, . . . we have the strength to take the right course."
That was it. That was the answer. Faith is a DECISION. Decades ago I made a decision: I determined that God is my Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ is my Lord and Redeemer, my only hope for peace in this life and eternal reward in the life to come. Joseph Smith is a prophet of God, through whose instrumentality the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price, many plain and precious truths, the keys and covenants and ordinances of the priesthood, and the organization of the Church have been restored. I decided that I would be loyal to the constituted authorities of the Church, that I would not take offense when there came either an inadvertent or intended "ecclesiastical elbow," as Elder Neal A. Maxwell used to call it. I decided that I was in this race for the long haul, that I would stick with the Good Ship Zion and that I would die in the faith in good standing. No man or woman would ever chase me out of the Church. No unresolved issue or perplexing doctrinal or historical matter would shake my faith.
Now I suppose some would respond that I am either living in denial or am simply naive to troublesome problems. I assure you that I am neither. I am a religious educator, have been so for thirty-five years, am very much aware of seeming incongruities that pop up here and there. I spend a goodly portion of my time with people who are of different faiths, and some of them are ever so eager to bring to my attention questions intended to embarrass me or the Church. There are just too many things about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that bring joy and peace to my heart, light and knowledge to my mind, and a cementing and sanctifying influence into my family and my interpersonal relationships, for me to choose to throw it all away because I am uncertain or unsettled about this or that dilemma. To put this another way, the whole is far, far greater than the sum of its parts.
There is a very tender scene in the New Testament that comes to mind when I contemplate what it would mean to leave the Church or take my membership elsewhere. Jesus has just delivered the Bread of Life Sermon, a deep and penetrating message on the vital importance of partaking fully of the person and powers of the Messiah. Many in the crowd at Capernaum do not understand, and are even offended by, the Master's remarks. "From that time many of his disciples went back," John records, "and walked no more with him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?" What a poignant moment: our Lord seems to display a sense of disappointment, a somber sadness for those in the darkness who cannot comprehend the Light. Will he be left alone? Is the price too great to pay? Is the cost of discipleship so expensive that perhaps even those closest to him will leave the apostolic fellowship? "Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God" (John 6:66-69, emphasis added). Once one has enjoyed sweet fellowship with the Christ, how does he or she turn away? Where do you go? What possible message, way of life, social interactions, or eternal promise can even compare with what Jesus offers?
Conclusion
Some have wandered away because they did not exercise that faith that required a decision. Consequently when something went wrong or something else didn't seem to make sense, they chose to absent themselves from church meetings and eventually from the Church.
And so if you have allowed unanswered questions in your life to develop into destructive doubts, I plead with you to think through the long-term implications of a decision to distance yourself from the Church. Ponder on what you are giving up. Think carefully upon what you will be missing. Reflect soberly on what you are allowing to slip from your grasp. If you are one who finds herself struggling with a doctrinal question or a historical incident, seek help. Seek it from the right persons, including your Heavenly Father or your priesthood leaders. Be patient. Be wise. Assume the best rather than the worst. If you are an otherwise active member of the Church who finds himself overly troubled by something that should never have happened or something that can be remedied in your heart by simply recognizing that all of us are human and that forgiveness is powerful spiritual medicine, leave it alone. Let it go. Keep the big picture and refuse to get bogged down in exceptions to the rule. Focus on fundamentals. Simplify your life and open yourself to that pure intelligence from the Spirit that is promised to us all, a state of mind and heart characterized by calmness and serenity.
Have you made a decision? Have you made the decision? Have you sought for and obtained a witness from God that the work in which we are engaged is heaven-sent and thus true? Such a quest is foundational to your future happiness and peace. Pursue it consistently and energetically. If you have received such a testimony, cherish it, cultivate it, and ask the Father in the name of the Son to broaden and deepen it. Then make the decision. Such a decision is a sacred commitment to remain true to the faith, even though you, like Nephi, "do not know the meaning of all things" (1 Nephi 11:17).
I bear witness that the fulness of the gospel has been restored; that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Redeemer and the Head of this Church; that living apostles and prophets, fifteen men whom we sustain as seers, watchmen upon the tower (D&C 101:45), are empowered to behold "things which [are] not visible to the natural eye" (Moses 6:36); and that God, through his living oracles, is preparing a people for the second coming of the Son of Man. My plea for each of us is that we will "search diligently, pray always, and be believing." As we do so, "all things shall work together for [our] good" (D&C 90:24, emphasis added). I so testify in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.