Standing As A Witness Part 1: Receiving a Witness

To be a witness, we must have a testimony of truth. Matthew 16:16-17 Spiritual truth is learned by the Holy Spirit. (see 1 Corinthians 2:9-12) Matthew 7:7 establishes the pattern of receiving spiritual truth by saying "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." I have discovered that as I follow this pattern, I receive answers and learn. But it doesn't all come at once. When we ask, what is it that we are given? Opportunity. When we use that opportunity to seek, what is found? Answers. When we act on these answers, and knock, what is opened? The windows of heaven. By acting on the truth we don't yet know, truth is confirmed to us. And by acting on truth we already know, we receive more.

Asking

Moroni gives us flawless instruction for learning in the last chapter of the Book of Mormon: 
"And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things." (Moroni 10:4-5)
So when we ask, we need 1. A sincere desire to learn 2. A sincere commitment to live by the truth we receive 3. Trust that The Lord will hear us and answer us. We demonstrate our will by the questions we ask, and The Lord blesses us accordingly.

Seeking

How frustrated would you feel at a restaurant if your waiter came asking what you would like to order, then walked away before you could answer? When you ask a question, you listen to the answer! So it is with our Heavenly Father. After we ask, we listen. We pay attention to the thoughts that come to our minds, We turn to the scriptures to find truth in what He has already said by His prophets. We find our answer, then we test it. D&C 9:8-9 says:
"But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right. But if it be not right you shall have no such feelings, but you shall have a stupor of thought that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong; therefore, you cannot write that which is sacred save it be given you from me."

Knocking

We try our answer by living by it; a hypothesis or theorem is useless if never tried. John 7:17 says "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." While you can spend plenty of time seeking out and studying the effects of aloe vera on a sunburn, yet you will never know the cooling relief it brings until you apply it. This is true for spiritual matters as well. As we live by the principles of faith and repentance, we gain an unshakable testimony of God's ability to mend our souls through the scriptures, through words of modern day prophets, and through covenants we make with Him, such as baptism.

Conclusion

As we ask, seek, and knock in faith we gain a witness of this marvelous work and wonder (Isaiah 29:14) and receive a knowledge as did Oliver Cowdery recorded in D&C 6:14-17; 
"Verily, verily, I say unto thee, blessed art thou for what thou hast done; for thou hast inquired of me, and behold, as often as thou hast inquired thou hast received instruction of my Spirit. If it had not been so, thou wouldst not have come to the place where thou art at this time. Behold, thou knowest that thou hast inquired of me and I did enlighten thy mind; and now I tell thee these things that thou mayest know that thou hast been enlightened by the Spirit of truth; Yea, I tell thee, that thou mayest know that there is none else save God that knowest thy thoughts and the intents of thy heart. I tell thee these things as a witness unto thee—that the words or the work which thou hast been writing are true."
With this witness we take our place besides the millions of others that have learned of the truth and divinity of this latter day work, and we stand as a witness; at all times, in all things, in all places we may be in even until death. Will you stand with me?

Standing In The Furnace Of Affliction

I have come to realize that everyone I meet has personal challenges
and concerns. While no one is exempt from them, we may all overcome
them by the Savior and his teachings. I have spent time thinking about
trials: what are they, and why do we have them? I had an epiphany
which I wrote down, on March 10th of last year. This is what I have
learned for myself.

Trials, sometimes called adversity, is merely change. They are changes that affect the "natural man" negatively. They are opportunities that The Lord gives us to show Him that we trust him, and that we do not rely solely upon the things around us. When we do not have an eternal perspective, one that extends beyond this life, and we are weak in our spirituality, that is when trials make us collapse. This is because they change things in this life that were temporary anyway, and if our foundation is built upon temporary things and not the bedrock of Christ, we fall. Even if we build our foundations of the gospel, what we build will be tried too. Paul explained it to the Corinthians this way:
"For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;
Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it,
because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.
If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall
receive a reward.
If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire." (1 Corinthians 3:11-15)

We will all be tried in the refiner's fire. (Zechariah 13:9, Malachi 3:2-3, 1 Peter 4:12-13) However, this is to refine us. (Ether 12:27, Isaiah 48:10) Just as trials are changes that break down the natural
man, they are an opportunity to repent and build up the spiritual man through change, and through the atonement. Mosiah 3:19 says:
"For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father."


Through these trials, we become tempered. Temperance is patiently enduring the short and long term consequences that come from the actions of yourself and others, and doing it with a good attitude. We learn, as did Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, that when we stand in the furnace of affliction, we stand shoulder to shoulder with the Son of God. (Isaiah 53:3-5, 1 Nephi 19:9, Alma 7:11-13) We shift from a worldly perspective to an eternal one, making stumbling blocks become stepping stones. We develop love for others as Christ had, and we fear no mortal consequences.