On Keeping Your Faith Alive

Here's a tidbit of information on me: I used to be a bit of an expert on raising goats.  That's right, goats.  My father had them as I was growing up.  I had some of my own as a teenager and young adult.  Aside from raising the animals, I read about them constantly.  Books, magazines, whatever I could find.  I also kept in constant contact with other breeders who were willing to share information.  I even started to write my own book about the subject.

When I first got married and had to move into an apartment, it absolutely killed me to get rid of my ‘pets.'  That was a long time ago, but I can remember it like it was yesterday.  If I had had enough money, I would have moved directly onto a farm and kept raising them, but I had to settle for an apartment with the hopes that I would move into the country sometime in the next few years.

Since I stopped raising goats, I stopped reading about them and lost contact with a lot of the other breeders.  And over time, the desire to raise goats kind of went out... like an unfed fire will by the end of a night.  At one time, I based most of my decisions around this hobby, and now I hardly think about it.

My point in telling you all this is: if you don't keep up with the faith (in practice and in study), you'll drop it eventually, and stop thinking about it altogether.

In simple terms, "A faith unexplored is a dead faith."  If you want to stay with the faithful, you'd better do the work necessary to increase your faith.  Look into the teachings of the Church--explore them and seek a better understanding.  This will ignite your thirst for more, and it will feed your faith so that no matter how small it starts, it will grow to a roaring fire.

As long as you add fuel, nothing will be able to destroy your faith.  But if you become complacent, if you allow yourself to think, "I know what I need to know , and now I have to spend time on what's important to ME," then your faith will become so faint that just a slight wind will blow it out... and you'll have no desire to reignite it.