A thought...

So I started with the very first requirement on the very first value.. just gonna go in order. One of the chapters I read was Hebrews 11. I’m not sure where that chapter has been my whole life but I LOVED reading it this time. I got so many insights that I had never really noticed before. I wanted to share one thing that I’ve been thinking about ever since. It’s verse six. It says without faith, it is impossible to please Him, meaning God. How interesting. The verse after goes on to say that without faith we can’t know who He is. Basically, that is the beginning of everything, belief that He exists. We all know that. Those of us who have served missions taught faith as the first principle of the gospel. But as I sat at my eye appointment last night waiting to see the doctor, I thought.. why use those words “please Him.” What does that really mean? The first scripture story that came to mind of Christ being pleased was the story of the brother of Jared. I have always loved the emotion Christ shows when Jared sees Him. “And never have I showed myself unto man whom I have created, for never has man believed in my as thou hast. Seest thou that ye are created after mine own image?” Ether 3:15 I love that He’s like, “See?! Everything that I told you is true!” This story teaches us two things.. one, that the veil is subjective. It’s “thinness” depends on our level of faith. The veil could not hold the Brother of Jered back, he had too much faith. Second, to me, this shows why it pleases God when we have faith. In our own lives, we can have like a slow-motion version of the experience the Brother of Jared had; we may not see the personage of Christ right now in this life, but using faith as an action and coming closer to Him makes the veil thinner. It increases our knowledge. The more faith we have, the more knowledge we will receive. It was ultimately The Brother of Jared’s faith that led him to gain a perfect knowledge of the reality of the Savior. When talking about it with Jered last night, he also made a good point that that is how we know our calling and election is made sure, Christ reveals Himself unto us and we therefore have perfect knowledge of His existence. I hope that makes sense to all of you, I thought it was pretty cool. Hope all is going well with my fellow gals of P squared!