Colby's Farewell

Today was the day...the farewell.  For those of you not familliar with "Missionary Farewells," this is the day when the young man (or young woman) who is heading out to serve a mission for our church, gets the opportunity to speak in church.  The Bishop assigned Colby the topic "Trust in the Lord."  I was pretty sure that the bishop gave Colby this topic for the benefit of his mother, not Colby, and I was right =)  Colby knows all about this, and gave a beautiful talk.  Several ward members came up to me afterwards and told me that Colby sounded more like he was returning from his mission rather than just leaving.  Colby is an amazing young man, we love him dearly, and are so incredibly proud of him.
I wanted to include his talk here, more for my recordkeeping, but also so those who were not able to be in attendance today could share in the spirit of the message.  Here goes:
"My talk today is on trusting in the Lord.  I find that it is similar to faith in the Lord, but taken a step further.  They are both similar in the fact that they require you to depend on the Lord, but just in varying ways.  The Bishop gave me this assignment roughly one month ago, but I started to prepare about 1 1/2 weeks before today, so I've had some time to think on this matter.  When he gave me this topic, the first scripture I thought of was, of course, a scripture mastery in the Old Testament, Proverbs 3:5.  It states:
  'Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not on thine own understanding.  In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.'
If you don't learn anything from this talk, you can at least remember this scripture.  From my researching and thinking on this matter, I have come up with three steps, or patterns, that we go through when we put our trust in the Lord.  The three steps are first, faith; second, trust; and third, confidence.  I will now go through these patterns or steps.  
Step One- Faith
In the 4th Artile of Faith it states:  'We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the gospel are:  first, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, repentance; third, baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost. '
In order for us to repent, be baptized, and have the gift of the Holy Ghost, we need to have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.  For if we have no faith, we cannot proceed with the next three things the article describes.  Faith is a hope or belief in something that isn't seen, but is TRUE.  You can't have a true faith in something that isn't true, such as a unicorn or a dragon, because they don't exist.  Having faith in Christ is a true thing to believe in.  What I have said is illustrated perfectly in Alma 32:21:
' And now as I said concerning faith - faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore, if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.'
This is what faith is.  A belief of a true principle.  All of us have some degree of faith since we are all here at church hearing this talk.  Between all of us are different degrees of faith.  We all exercise our faith on our own time and by our own means.  Whether it is by scripture reading, coming to church, actually participating in Sunday School (Brother Sawyer encourages this), or home teaching.  All of these things are ways we can strengthen our faith in Christ.  Faith is something that has to be proactively used, you cannot develop faith then sit back and watch it grow.  In order for faith to grow you have to keep reading the scriptures, keep going to church, keep home teaching and keep magnifying your callings and Priesthood.
In my many years of playing video games and basketball, you can't improve by lying dormant.  You have to keep practicing and doing in order to continue to develop.  It works the same with faith.  In this mortal life I know that it is hard to find time to do these things.  In Ether 12:6, there are some comforting words:
' And now, I, Moroni, would speak somewhat concerning these things; I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.'
The comforting part of this scripture is in the last phrase of the scripture, 'For ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.'  We will have loads of trials in this life, but once we have gotten through the trials, we will find that our faith is strengthened since we had faith in Christ to overcome our trials.  If we continue to develop our faith, we will have faith much like the brother of Jared, who even had the faith to see Christ's finger.
Having faith in Christ is an important step in the gospel, and a big step for those who haven't exercised their faith in a while.  It is an important step because you cannot do anything in Christ's Kingdom if you do not have faith in him.
Trust - Step Two
Step two is next.  It is where our faith is solidified into trusting in Christ.  Trusting in Christ is much like having faith in Christ, but now we depend on him and look for ways to keep Him in our lives.  Mosiah 4:6 is a good scripture for this:
'I say unto you, if ye have come to a knowledge of the goodness of God, and his matchless power, and his wisdom, and his patience, and his long-suffering towards the children of men; and also, the atonement which has been prepared from the foundation of the world, that thereby salvation might come to him that should put his trust in the Lord, and should be diligent in keeping his commandments, and continue in the faith even unto the end of his life, I mean the life of the mortal body.'
As it says in the first part of the scripture, 'If ye have come to a knowledge of the goodness of God, and his matchless power, and his wisdom, and his patience, and his long-suffering towards the children of men;' you can achieve these qualities that Christ has ONLY by putting your trust in him and keep on putting your trust in him until the end of your mortality.  That will take a lot of patience for us to wait that long, but it will be more than worth it.  In Morman 9:20 it describes to us what we should not do with our trust in Christ:
'And the reason why he ceaseth to do miracles among the children of men is because that they dwindle in unbelief, and depart from the right way, and know not the God in whom they should trust.'
We should not lose our trust in God, or miracles will cease to happen.  It is fortunate that miracles do happen in this age.  Our country is a miracle, the Restoration of the gospel is a miracle.  We still have miracles today, but we should heed to Mormon's words and not dwindle in our Ttrust in Christ.  You don't need to worry that Christ isn't watching you, or know that you are trusting in Him, for it says in Nahum 1:7:
'The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth then that trust in him.'
If you trust the Lord you will be known by Him.
Because Christ can't be physically with us, he has his servants on this Earth the help us with our trials.  In the book of Daniel, we have the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego.  They have refused to worship the golden image, and in chapter 3 verse 28 Nebuchadnezzar says this:
'Then Nebuchadnezzar spake, and said, Blessed by the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, who hath sent his angel, and delivered his servants that tyrusted in him and have changed the king's word and yielded their bodies, that they might not serve nor worship any god, except their own God.'
Servants of the Lord are our Priesthood leaders who do only what the Lord tells them to do.  They need to have trust in the Lord in order to carry-out their callings.  They need to have this trust in order to know how things need to be done, if the speaker is not going off topic on his talk (pause).  I would like to end this second step with a historcal account of Abraham Lincoln in 1863.  The first conversation was with a wounded General when he was talking with Lincoln about what he was feeling during the battle of Gettysburg:
When Lee crossed the Potomac and entered Pennsylvania, followed by our army, I felt that the great crisis had come.  I knew that defeat in a great battle on northern soil involved the loss of Washington, to be followed perhaps by the intervention of England and France in favor of the Confederacy.  I went to my room and got down on my knees in prayer.  
Never before had I prayed with so much earnestness.  I wish I could repeat my prayer.  I felt I must put all my trust in Almighty God.  He gave our people the best country ever given to man.  He alone could save it from destruction.  I had tried my best to do my duty and had found myself unequal to the task.  The burden was more than I could bear.  I asked Him to help us and give us victory now.  I was sure my prayer was answered.  I had no misgivings about the result at Gettysburg.
This next account was observed by General James Rusling, who gave the following account of the conversation:
'In reply to a question from General Sickles whether or not the President was anxious about the battle of Gettysburg, Lincoln gravely said, "No, I was not; some of my cabinet and many others in Washington were, but I had no fears."  General Sickles inquired how this was, and seemed curious about it, Mr. Lincoln hesitated, but finally replied; "Well, I will tell you how it was.  In the pinch of the campaign up there, when everybody seemed panic-stricken, and nobody could tell what was going to happen, oppressed by the gravity of our affairs, I went to my room one day, and I locked the door, and got down on my knees before Almighty God, and prayed to Him mightily for victory at Gettysburg.  I told Him that this was His war, and our cause His cause, but couldn't stand another Fredericksburg or Chancellorsville.  And I then and there made a solemn vow to Almighty God, that if He would stand by our boys at Gettysburg, I would stand by Him.  And He did stand by your boys, and I will stand by Him.  And after that (I don't know how it was, and I can't explain it,) soon a sweet comfort crept into my soul that God Almighty had taken the whole business into His own hands and that things would go all right at Gettysburg.  And that is why I had no fears about you.'
If Abraham Lincoln could depend on God and trust in Him to win him a war, then wy can't we put our trust in Him for just small things, or sometimes big things?  He was not a member of this church, he could have been, Lincoln was about 20 years old when Joseph had the First Vision.  The experience Lincoln had was that comforting of the Holy Ghost, with him having the Light of Christ.
Confidence - Step Three
We have reached the third and final step.  Which is having confidence in Christ.  The main examples I have of this are mainly prophets, apostles & characters in the scriptures.  It was the brother of Jared's faith and confidence that he could see the flesh of Jehovah when he touched the stones to light the barges.  It was Moses' faith and confidence that he was able to load the children of Israel towards the promise land.  Moses didn't walk up to the Red Sea and say "Oh we need to part the sea in order to cross," he had confidence in Christ that he would lead them over the sea in some fashion or another.  It was Nephi who said to his father that I will go and do the things which the Lord does command for I know that he gives no commandment unto the children of men, save he prepares a way for them to do it.  Nephi couldn't have said that half-heartedly, he meant it because he exercised the utmost confidence and faith in Christ.
This may be a step that will take most of us awhile to attain, but it will be the more worth it for us to have.  The opposition that we have in this mortality will test us of our confidence in Christ, may we do what the prophets of old and today do, and what Abraham Lincoln did, that is to exercise the faith necessary to do so, whether by prayer or reading the scriptures we need to develop our faith, we need to develop our trust, we need to develop our confidence in the Lord.  For there is no other person in which we should put our trust in, and that trust should be to Jesus the Christ.