Thanks to my dear sister Kathy....

Oh how I love my sister Kathy. She has taught me so much lately about faith. This is one of the thought she shared with me. I have looked for it for a while and finally found something very close to what she shared. It has become a key reminder for me on so many occasions.

“Why did the Lord ask such things of Abraham? Because, knowing what his future would be and that he would be the father of an innumerable posterity, he was determined to test him. God did not do this for His own sake; for He knew by His foreknowledge what Abraham would do; but the purpose was to impress upon Abraham a lesson, and to enable him to attain unto knowledge that he could not obtain in any other way. That is why God tries all of us. It is not for His own knowledge; for He knows all things beforehand. He knows all your lives and everything you will do. But He tries us for our own good, that we may know ourselves. ... He required Abraham to submit to this trial because He intended to give him glory, exaltation and honor; He intended to make him a king and a priest, to share with Himself the glory, power and dominion which He exercised” (GeorgeQ. Cannon, in Conference Report, Apr. 1899, 66).

Elder NealA. Maxwell applied these truths to us when he said our lives “cannot be both faith-filled and stress-free....

“Therefore, how can you and I really expect to glide naively through life, as if to say, Lord, give me experience, but not grief, not sorrow, not pain, not opposition, not betrayal, and certainly not to be forsaken. Keep from me, Lord, all those experiences which made Thee what Thou art! Then let me come and dwell with Thee and fully share Thy joy!” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1991, 117; or Ensign, May 1991, 88 ).

The Prophet Joseph Smith suggested that sacrifice is one of the ways we obtain greater faith. For example, how do you think your faith in God would have grown if you had experienced what Abraham had? He would not have grown in faith if he had refused to offer the sacrifice God commanded. Joseph Smith said, “A religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation” ( Lectures on Faith [1985], 69).