When I was 14 and lived in Germany, my Dad would give firesides called "Why I Believe" around the Frankfurt Mission. Basically, it was a fireside with reasons to be a believer in Jesus Christ and His Gospel. In my life, I've often pondered about why I believe. I find it SO important to express this to those we love and even strangers. More importantly, we need to express it in general so we remember, realize and at sometimes even recognize that we actually do believe. Verbalization is sometimes a precursor to realization and knowledge.
The next many posts will be a verbalization of why I believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This post will focus around "What is belief vs. What is knowledge?"
There have been various times in my life when I've been frustrated by the looseness of using the terms "I know" in reference to belief. I've even thought sometimes that it is not possible to "know" something without being able to see or prove it. I hope to express my findings in the correlation of a deep belief and knowledge of something. On my mission, when people asked how it was possible to know something we can't see, I always had the same answer. How do we know that there is wind or that we breathe air? We feel it. I don't see wind, but I feel it against my face. I don't see air but when I breathe in, I feel it filling my lungs and sustaining my existence. I know that air exists because I've had experiences with it that tell me so. Elder Monte J. Brough explained it much clearer than I:
"One time in Minnesota, where I served as mission president, we had a missionary fireside where at the end I used the words “I know” as I bore my testimony. An investigator came up to speak with me after the meeting was over. He said, “Unless I can touch, smell, hear, see, or taste, I do not believe.” He, of course, had listed the five physical senses, which are an integral part of our mortal and temporal beings. I asked him if he believed in radio signals or gravity or even Hong Kong.
There are many physical elements that exist but we cannot detect them without some additional processes being involved. My cell phone, radio, and other devices convince me that these extra sensory concepts also exist. I cannot see them, I cannot taste them, I cannot feel, hear, or smell them, but I know that they are there."
(Elder Monte J. Brough, "I Know What I Know;" Ensign, October 2009.)
From numerous communications with God, my belief has grown to a deep knowledge that He is real and that the Gospel is true. Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin expounds on belief and knowledge. He references 2 Nephi 31:20:
"Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the world of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life."
He then says: "What we want is for that perfect brightness of hope to develop into a perfect knowledge, as testimony of the Savior and our Heavenly Father. And to me, that perfect knowledge is that we don't have a shadow of doubt... To know is to have an assurance, without a shadow of a doubt, that something is true."
("Hope and Faith: a discussion with Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin.")
I too believe that that perfect brightness of hope can develop into a perfect knowledge. I've seen that knowledge stay strong at times where my foundation could have crumbled. That knowledge has sustained me as the winds of adversity and the battles of life have confronted me. I believe that a belief would not have sustained me through some experiences I've had, because I believe that doubt would have trickled in and weakened the foundation of my belief.
I know that God is real. I know that He answers prayers. I know that I will be reunited with Him and my loved ones after this life. I know the Restored Gospel and all that accompanies it, is directly from God.
So the journey of why I believe has begun.
