What are the challenges to your faith? What are the greatest challenges to your faith? To the faith of members of your family? To the faith of the members in your stewardship?
What can we do to build and strengthen our faith? The faith of the members of our families? The faith of the members in our stewardships?
Our topic for the month of July is “Faith”. Look for talks on faith by stake leaders later this month, and study on your own by listening to these talks and articles:
Faith is Not By Chance, but by Choice, Neil L. Andersen
Mountains to Climb, Henry B. Eyring
The Opportunities and Responsibilities of CES Teachers in the 21st Century, M. Russell Ballard
Faith and Testimony, Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Howard W. Hunter (section 3)
Please also reflect on this passage from President Kimball:
“Some reservoirs are to store water. Some are to store food, as we do in our family welfare program and as Joseph did in the land of Egypt during the seven years of plenty. There should also be reservoirs of knowledge to meet the future needs; reservoirs of courage to overcome the floods of fear that put uncertainty in our lives; reservoirs of physical strength to help us meet the frequent burdens of work and illness; reservoirs of goodness; reservoirs of stamina; reservoirs of faith.
“Yes, especially reservoirs of faith, so that when the world presses in upon us, we stand firm and strong; when the temptations of a decaying [and, I should add, increasingly permissive and wicked] world about us draw on our energies, sap our spiritual vitality, and seek to pull us down, we need a storage of faith that can carry youth, and later adults, over the dull, the difficult, the terrifying moments; disappointments; disillusionments; and years of adversity, want, confusion, and frustration.
“And who is to build these reservoirs? Is this not the reason that God gave to every child two parents?
“It is those parents who sired them and bore them who are expected [by the Lord] to lay foundations for their children and to build the barns and tanks and bins and reservoirs.”
(Kimball, Faith Precedes the Miracle, pp. 110–11.)