Tears, mudd and sun

I am wondering if faith and trust can be used interchangeably. 

“I have trust in you.”

“I have faith in you.”

🤷‍♀️

They mean the same to me. Maybe “faith” comes off stronger though? 

What do you think?

Whether you believe in God, or the Book of Mormon or Bible, thats where I have learned more about this concept. I have learned it from observing. I would say the scriptures are a way for me to people watch. I love people watching. It’s one of my favorite things to do. I love learning about human behavior from these books.

Now don’t leave yet. There is something cool here.

Last weekend Nathan ran an iron man distance race. It was the starvation xtri. He swam 2.2 miles, biked 100 miles and ran 26 miles. He got up to over 10,000 feet of elevation with the bike and trail ran through mountain trails. I knew he would finish and I knew he would be ok. Without a doubt. And if he was going to quit, I would’ve pushed and encouraged him to keep going. 

This is me having faith in him! And him having faith in himself!

Ok, so same event, but this scenario brings in a family member close to Nathan who is emotional during the race. He notices on the tracker that Nathan has stopped. He wasn’t moving and lots of people were passing this “stopped” Nathan. He was getting teary throughout the race based off what the unreliable tracker was saying. Whether this scenario was happening or not with Nathan, is this a lack of faith? Lack of faith in Nathan and a lack of faith in God? 

There is a man from the Book of Mormon named Ammon. I recently pondered and studied, and “people watched,” this story for a few weeks. After living a reckless life and putting himself and others lives in danger, he was made aware from an Angel of God that he needed to stop living this way. And he did. His heart was changed by turning to God. And he never went back to living that reckless lifestyle again. He wanted others to feel this joy that he felt from this change. He then wanted to go teach the most murderous group of people around. (I think that he felt comfortable around these people because He could relate to them. ) He asked permission from his father to go and help and serve these people. His dad was nervous. As you can imagine. But God told his father that He would protect Ammon while he went and served. 

Ammon never forgot this for as long as he was serving these people. He KNEW that he was going to be watched over.

And you know what, he was able to LOVE  these people. Listen, Ammon put himself in a very dangerous situation. But he went in there with FAITH. There were several men that tried to kill him on multiple occasions. But because he remembered what God had promised his father, he was able to put himself in these situations which ended up turning the hearts of these people. They saw that they could trust Ammon, ONLY because Ammon trusted God. 

I think thats a beautiful story of Faith and trust!

How can I change my life and my children’s lives and my friends lives? By trusting them! I think that trust is such a healing and beautiful and freeing concept. 

Think about it. You make a decision in your life and those closest to you simply trust you. No judgement. No criticism. Just trust. Faith! And you go forward with that decision and you succeed and grow and thrive. I think that if we are not supported the outcome will be different. Would you go forward with it with out the faith from those you love the most? 

Even if you are doing something that they wish you wouldn’t do… what would happen if there was just trust. What message are they sending if they choose not to have faith in you?

Lack of trust. 

That you can’t make decisions on your own.

That you are incompetent. 

That they know better than you. “I’m smarter.”

I’ve mostly been thinking of Ammon lately, and how I want to have more faith, less fear.

This example with the race came up, and helped me realize that there are several daily scenarios that can fit into this category. Could this family member have had a more enjoyable time at the race? The things he was saying and the things he was doing were all due to his thoughts that resulted in a lack of Faith.

This is just one big concept that I want to get better and better at. 

What are your thoughts?

J❤️