Many people believe. They are easily entreated and want to be good. They want to follow Christ. They are teachable. Their hearts are yielding and even broken. But many are full of unbelief. They are not easily entreated. They want only aggrandizement. They seek to do their own will. They are not teachable, for their hearts are hardened. Such is the case as Samuel the Lamanite preaches to the Nephites.
The question for us would be: “Are we a believing people?” The Lord has said, “Search diligently, pray always, and be believing, and all things shall work together for your good, if ye walk uprightly and remember the covenant wherewith ye have covenanted one with another” (D&C 90:24).
Surely a believing heart is key to following our Savior and the living prophets—if we then walk uprightly and remember our covenants. Sometimes in our stubbornness we seek or even demand perfect understanding.
We must exercise our faith and doubt not, even as Moroni explains, “O then despise not, and wonder not, but hearken unto the words of the Lord, and ask the Father in the name of Jesus for what things soever ye shall stand in need. Doubt not, but be believing, and begin as in times of old, and come unto the Lord with all your heart, and work out your own salvation with fear and trembling before him” (Mormon 9:27).
Yes, a believing heart not only pleases our Heavenly Father but shows our level of faith according to our belief. Remember that it is impossible to please God without faith (see Hebrews 11:6).
Father Adam demonstrated this kind of faithful obedience as explained in the record:
And he gave unto them commandments, that they should worship the Lord their God, and should offer the firstlings of their flocks, for an offering unto the Lord. And Adam was obedient unto the commandments of the Lord.
And after many days an angel of the Lord appeared unto Adam, saying: Why dost thou offer sacrifices unto the Lord? And Adam said unto him: I know not, save the Lord commanded me.
And then the angel spake, saying: This thing is a similitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father, which is full of grace and truth.
Wherefore, thou shalt do all that thou doest in the name of the Son, and thou shalt repent and call upon God in the name of the Son forevermore. (Moses 5:5–8)
It is a demonstration of our faith and love of the Lord to believe without fully understanding. It is indeed our faith in action.
A Benedictine monk known as Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109) was born at Aosta, Italy, and educated in Normandy. He became a monk, teacher, and abbot at Bec, and continued his ecclesiastical career in England. He was a noted philosopher who attempted to prove the existence of God, that we owed our very being to Him, that He was the source of all truth from which all real and true values come. Elder Neal A. Maxwell quoted Anselm and mentioned that this was indeed good counsel: “Believe in order to understand,” rather than “understand [in order to] believe” (St. Anselm, trans. Sidney Norton Deane [1903], 7; Neal A. Maxwell, Ensign, Nov. 2002, 18).
With open hearts we understand the things of God (see 3 Nephi 19:33). (Ed J. Pinegar)