The Science of Faith Part 1

The last few months I have been studying faith and how we can build it. As I was studying I began to notice how much science and faith were alike. I have decided to do a couple three blogs on what I have found.

Part One: Precision and Accuracy

My senior year I took a statistics class and was educated in the difference between accuracy and precision. Accuracy is how close you get to somethings true value. Precision is how often you get the same results over a period of time in the same situation. Both are vital to getting valid and useful results.  I was thinking about how this relates to our faith.

The Stripling Warriors-Alma 57:21

In order for our faith to bring us true results we must be both accurate and precise. We must make sure our actions match up perfectly with what we are asked to do; we must be exactly obedient or accurate. We must also place our faith IN Christ and not anything else. Only when we are accurate in our faith can we expect and have an assurance that God will do His part. Like a function or machine what we put into it directly correlates with what we get out of it and thus the more accurate our actions or Faith in Christ become the more we are able to receive the blessings of the Lord (1 Nephi 1:20, Ether 12:6) and feel confident in His presence (Doctrine and Covenants 121:45)

In addition to accuracy we must make our faith precise or in other words consistent. Over time our actions must continue to fall close to the mark or we will never be able to enjoy the long term blessings of faith. When our actions are consistent we reap the results of these actions shaping us to be not just act more like our Savior. In short, when our faith is precise we become precisely what we came here to be-more like our Heavenly Father.

I know that though faith takes self-discipline, hard work, and diligence that if we treat it with the same deliberateness, dedication, and carefulness as scientists do than we will receive powerful life-altering results. Faith really can change our lives if we pay attention to the small details (Alma 37:6-7) that allow us to be both precise and accurate. True faith will always bring us blessings-for we have the greatest scientist telling us so: God.

Additional Scriptures:

Accuracy: Alma 57:21
Precision: 2 Nephi 31:20, Mosiah 2:41
 

He Loved Me Enough to Turn Off the A/C

When we begin to forget God, He will stop the flow of
blessings so that we turn to Him again.

I have always admired my Dad's creative mind-except when he has used it to prove a point. The occasion that I am thinking of is a time when he, my mother, my little sister, and I were all driving to Vegas to see a concert. It was the middle of the summer in the afternoon and it was a scorching hot desert to drive through, but of course, it didn't matter too much due to the wonderful invention of air conditioning. Soon I was so comfortable in my backseat with a pillow against the window and my headphones in that I began to doze off. My poor Dad was driving and soon I wasn't the only one asleep-my mother and sister had succumbed to the comfort of modern travel. Feeling a little lonely I'm sure, he began to try to make small talk with us but his efforts were fruitless. We would each give him a sleepy one word response and fall back asleep. Soon he gave up....or so we thought.

All I remember was that slowly I began to get a tad on the warm side. Being sleepy it didn't seem to register too much. But as time passed I went from discomfort to hot to sweaty and miserable; miserable enough to wake up fully and inquire why it was so hot. I wasn't alone. My mother soon piped in "Hey Mike, why is it so hot in here?" I happened to look up just in time to see my Dad grin like the Cheshire cat in the rear view mirror as he said "Oh, does it seem a little warm in here to you?"

He went on to explain that he had tried to get our attention with the small talk but as none of us seemed to be paying much attention to him he decided to cut off the flow of air, hoping to sweat us out. I believe he also justified this act by mentioning it was also giving us an opportunity to feel like the pioneers must have when they crossed the United States in heat. Really, he told us, it was a blessing in disguise. 

And you know what-it was, because I was able to enjoy the rest of the drive getting to know my Dad better, something I would've lost had the a/c stayed on. This is the same exact way our Heavenly Father looks at things. There is a verse in Helaman 12:3 that says:

"And thus we see that except the Lord doth chasten his people with many afflictions, yea, except he doth visit them with death and with terror, and with famine and with all manner of pestilence they will not remember him"

God will always wait patiently for us to awake and turn to Him

God knows what makes us most happy. He knows, like my Dad knows, that there a lot of things in life we can try to do to "pass the time" on our journey in life. But just as my Dad knows that falling asleep while listening to an IPod will never bring us as much joy as being able to have meaningful conversation with a loving Father, God knows nothing can replace the relationship we could have with Him. In those times when we seem to get distracted or forget or are too comfortable to talk to God He will withdraw the blessings that flow so easily into our lives. It is not out of punishment or anger but really out of love, for He knows that a little bit of hardship for a time is well worth the prize of remembering to call upon our loving Father-he knows that those blessings are far better than going through life comfortably distracted. And most of all, no matter how far away Heavenly Father gets from our minds, it is a comfort to know that we are never far from His-no matter how long we go without noticing Him. (Mosiah 27:30) He will never forget nor forsake us, and will do anything it takes to help us remember Him, so that we may be truly happy in this life.

The Grapes of Wrath

My father loves to make things out of our garden. From pickles to nuts to freezing green beans we have tried making many things from our garden. Usually our ideas stem from us growing way more than we would ever want of something (side note: never plant more than one zucchini plant unless you plan on making zucchini bread every day for at least 3 months). One year in particular we had far too many grapes. My Mom hopelessly tried to juice them but it was time-consuming and yielded very little profit. So, my Dad came to the rescue with a fool proof idea: raisins. They had to be pretty easy to make and they don't go bad very quickly so it was the perfect solution-or so we thought.
Turns out there are a few steps to making grapes; you have to de-stem them and then spread them out and then put some lemon juice on them before you set them out to dry in the sun. Pretty simple but surprisingly time consuming, especially with little home-grown grapes. We all soon were rather tired of making raisins, but we kept going as best we could. My Dad came in one day and saw our red rimmed eyes, bleeding fingers from de-stemming (that may or may not be an exaggeration), and the huge pile of grapes yet to undergo the process of becoming raisins and took pity on us. He proposed yet another idea: to just throw the grapes outside and without de-stemming them or putting lemon juice on them. We told him we didn't think that would work, we would be missing some key steps, but he told us he doubted it mattered much and that he was sure it would work and save us a lot of time and effort. So we did as he suggested, we simply unceremoniously placed the grapes on cookie sheets, covered it all with a sheet, and waited. Then we waited some more. Then we mourned the fact that for a whole week no one had been able to use any cookie sheets because they were all still outside. Then we waited a little longer. Finally, when the fruit flies showed up we decided it was time to throw the now rotting grapes away and reclaim our cookie sheets... Needless to say it had been a bit of a failure-though a well meaning and noble try.

In essence we are all grapes right now doing our best to become more like raisins (Christ and Heavenly Father). The steps of the Gospel of Jesus Christ are simple and easy to follow, but sometimes we seek to find an easier, shorter way. But just like a grape will never be a raisin without it undergoing a precise but simple process, we can never reach our potential without carefully following each step of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end). Nephi, a prophet in the Book of Mormon said:
"wherefore, they shall come to the knowledge of their Redeemer and the very points of his doctrine, that they may know how to come unto him and be saved." (1 Nephi 15:14)
Let us each learn more about the very points of Christ's doctrine, so that we too can reach our full potential.