Open Heart Challenge Part 6

Faith's Role in Opening One's Heart

To be able to move forward and to feel God’s love for us, we must have faith in the future, a willingness to and a belief that we can change — that God can change our hearts. As Elder Holland taught, “The past is to be learned from but not lived in. We look back to claim the embers from glowing experiences but not the ashes. And when we have learned what we need to learn and have brought with us the best that we have experienced, then we look ahead, we remember that faith is always pointed toward the future. Faith always has to do with blessings and truths and events that will yet be efficacious in our lives. So a more theological way to talk about Lot’s wife is to say that she did not have faith. She doubted the Lord’s ability to give her something better than she already had. Apparently she thought—fatally, as it turned out—that nothing that lay ahead could possibly be as good as those moments she was leaving behind” (Jeffrey R. Holland, Remember Lot’s Wife). Let us not choose the way of Lot’s wife, but look forward to the future. Look forward to flourishing relationships and a heart filled with God’s love.