Faith, Truth, and the Lens of Our Own Experience

One.

My coworker and I always tried for the same seats on the first level balcony overlooking the stage. Every summer at BYU, the Tuesday Morning devotionals were moved from the large Marriott Center to the much smaller De Jong Concert Hall. And the best part about being a full-time BYU employee is that you get paid to attend.

That meant we’d both take a book we were reading and get through a couple pages before the speaker began, or else one of us might take a little nap through the whole thing– which was my preference. 

One of these Tuesday mornings, when we’d gotten the seats nearest the edge of the balcony, I noticed that one of the men sitting on the stage below was looking up at me. I thought maybe I was wrong at first, but every time I looked down, I’d watch his head move away from the speaker and back up at me. Typical of the girl that I am, I went through various possibilities: was I weird looking? Was I pretty? Did he think he recognized me? Did I know him? I didn’t figure it out. But the next week, the same thing happened – except with a different person. Soon I started to notice other faces looking up at me as well. My mind was boggled as I tried in vain to put together why in the world everyone was staring up me in the balcony. Were we not supposed to be sitting there?

Then one blessed week after the devotional ended, I remember leaning out over the edge of the balcony. I think I was trying to see if I could find a friend who was sitting on the other side. However, as I leaned over to get a better view, I noticed that just below the identical balcony across the concert hall was a large television screen.

The light went on in my head. Sure enough, there was a television screen right below me as well. And the reality was that no one had ever actually been looking at me. They’d been watching the speaker from the screen below my feet.

Aside from the embarrassing realization that the world did not, in fact, revolve around me, I realized something else. Unless I’d seen it from a different angle, I’d never have figured out the truth.

Two.

Probably a year or two earlier, while finishing my mission in Brazil, Elder M. Russell Ballard delivered a conference talk entitled, “Stay in the Boat and Hold On!” At the time, I seem to remember feeling quite skeptical about it. It seemed to me that if someone wanted to leave the Church, which was the symbolism of the aforementioned “boat,” then simply telling them to stay wasn’t particularly persuasive or useful. I filed the talk on some mental shelf unofficially called, “I don’t get it; maybe one day I will, but not gonna try.” I don’t remember ever responding particularly positive to anyone’s reference to the talk. I’m a political theorist, after all, and it didn’t seem very logically sound.

A couple years later, I was in conversation with a very close friend. She explained to me about a time, while I was on my mission, that she’d contemplated leaving the Church She outlined some of her struggles and motivations, and then explained to complete shock.

“You know what made me stay? That talk from Elder Ballard – ‘Stay in the Boat’.” She then explained how his words had an influence on her and her decision-making process. I, of course, was mentally eating humble pie. It was critical for someone, even if it was meaningless to me.

Three.

My Dad has often told me the story of when I had pneumonia as a baby. The doctors had to run some tests and other procedures. He describes how hard it was to hand me over to the doctors and let them strap me into the machine. I’ve always remembered the way he explained it:

“I’ll never forget your face. When I let them take you away, you looked at me with betrayal in your eyes. It broke my heart. But I knew it was the only way to save you.”

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One of the things I’ve been pondering over for the last few months or so is how one shift in our experience, perspective, or knowledge changes everything. But the difficult part about being human is how easy it is to get caught wearing lenses of our personal experiences, and never taking them off to the see reality of a world of light and unforseen truth.

Experience is meaningful. Powerful. Necessary. How could the foreordained plan of Our Heavenly Father have functioned effectively unless we each gained mortal experiences and learned for ourselves the process of overcoming adversity, developing compassion, growing in families, and ultimately becoming like God?

But experiences faced in mortality come with a fundamental weakness – us. We are not perfect. Not our vision, our understanding, our perspective, or our nature or behaviors. It is easy for us to get confused, deceived, or manipulated. We can be mistaken, can make false assumptions, interpret incorrectly, or even be lied to and betrayed by people we trust or ideas we’ve relied on.

In short, seeing the world through lens of our own experiences is simply not enough.

No one – with the exception of the Savior – has experienced enough to know everything. That’s the simple answer. You won’t know what you don’t know. As a simple child, I could not see how a father letting me experience pain was the only path to my own healing. As an adult, I did not realize that gospel messages reach different people in different ways and not all of them have to be for me, in my way, in the time I want them.

The surer means of understanding and perceiving the world, our relationships, and our experiences correctly would be to borrow the lens of the Savior and to take a glance through them. To see the world as He sees it.  

I won’t pretend that is easy. And for some it may sound unrealistic. But I do not think it is impossible. In fact, I think of President Nelson’s recent plea for us to learn and understand the process of spiritual revelation. To commune with God, it would seem, is actually necessary for our spiritual survival! In light of the ease of self-deception and inability to see all things, that advice seems beyond prophetic. It is crucial.

I don’t mean to preach that those with doctrinal questions or personal struggles and concerns or who are unsure if they have felt the presence or love of God in their life should simply let go of their fears and expect to “follow the spirit” when they are not sure they comprehend what that even means. I’m not trying to invalidate anyone’s quest for understanding. Journey’s are necessary for all us! I think if it wasn’t that way, Lehi’s dream would have been less about clinging to an iron rod through a mist of darkness and more like hopping on a one-way train and simply riding towards salvation. 

That overcomplicates the point, perhaps, which is this: mortality is a journey of endurance because perfection is a refining process. But I think my message speaks to something even more simplistic.

We don’t know everything and that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with that. No, we can’t always see the big picture, but that doesn’t mean we have to abandon the trail.

I used to think faith needed to be based on something I knew. If I knew God lived, then I could have faith that He loved more, or listened to my prayers, or let hard things happen to let me grow. But recently, I’ve realized that faith is more about believing that the iron rod you’re holding in the mist of darkness is actually leading you to a tree of life. It’s literally choosing to hold on, even when you can’t see anything in front of you, because you’re determined to see where it takes you. Because someone up ahead is promising you that it is worth it. Because the occasional moments here are there scattered throughout your life when maybe you felt something inside, something uplifting or good, or experienced the love of someone close to you – all the little things whispering to your soul that this is good. That if you just don’t let go, the darkness will one day fade into light.

Faith is a choice. That’s the sum of it. We exercise faith in what we cannot see, because truth was never bound to our own experiences anyway.  Seeing the world through the lens of our own experiences alone may be enlightening and strengthening as much as it can be blinding and confusing – but never does it change the beauty and truth of the world we are still learning how to see. The trick is to trust our lenses less and rely on God more until one day the world is full of light.

While admittedly difficult, I suppose that the liberating reality is that choosing to embrace our lack of knowledge only opens up the door for future light.