Coaching with LDS values

Episode 103: Faith This is Bonnie Lyman, and you're listening to the podcast, Loving on Purpose, Episode 103, Faith. Welcome to the podcast, Loving on Purpose. Merry Christmas, my friends. I hope you're having trouble starting to settle down with your Christmas preparations, if you are struggling or just enjoying the spirit of the season. One thing I enjoy about getting older is that we have greatly simplified our Christmases. But it sure was fun with those little ones around, wasn't it? But I appreciate This time of year and, uh, because Jesus Christ plays such an important part of my life that, um, I can give a little more attention to him. I appreciate that people's hearts are a little softer. I know I tip a little more generously than I usually do, but it's also a way of perhaps Making someone's Christmas a little easier for things they would like to give to those they love in their family. So, my good friend, Jody Lyons, who was a client and has become a dear, dear friend. I believe she is an angel in my life. She texts me just at the time where I may be needing a lift and asking me how I am and hoping that things are going well. But she asked if I would do a podcast on faith. And so that is what I'm going to talk about today. And I hope I do the topic justice. So So, to me, faith is having a strong belief that God conspires in my favor, and it means good comes into my life, but also things I would rather maybe just skip over and not have to happen or go through in my life. But because He conspires in my favor, He knows That it's through these hard things is where, um, my, my feeling, my knowledge of strength of faith is strengthened. And it's also where I become my best self. Faith is not the absence of grief. Faith is knowing that suffering is actually a part of the joy. It is seeing and knowing that you get through the suffering, that you get through the trial. It's impossible, I would think, to live without faith. Without faith, We would feel defeated and not have a lot of hope or ambition to try to keep moving forward even when times are bad. When bad things happen, we wouldn't see the benefit of why this bad thing happened in our life without We would probably run away from it and not deal with it responsibly. And we would not be able to see our life and ourselves as being better from it. Having gone through something difficult. Something that even really caused us to suffer. We would quit giving assignments to our brains that we want to feel differently. And so it would just keep helping us feel miserable. Faith generally refers to a strong belief in something. Often. without proof or evidence that it is true or it is going to happen. It can be related to religious beliefs, or it can be trust in a person or a thing, or a strong conviction about a truth of a concept or an idea. My faith happens to be centered in God. As mentioned before, My faith in God is that He is always conspiring in my favor. He is the only one I can depend on to bring me peace into my life. Even my husband, who I feel is the person on this earth who loves me the deepest. It would be pretty discouraging if we had to question every night whether the sun was going to rise the following day. But most of us have the faith, and some may just call it a belief, that it will rise every day. Now, a belief is a thought that we have thought over and over and over again that we believe to be true. And that can work to our advantage or our disadvantage. We can maybe have the belief because Our children don't show us that they don't love us because we have had the thought over and over again that they don't love us. But faith is, it's a little different feeling and it comes about in a different way. Knowing that my children that have wandered from their faith have done nothing wrong but are merely exercising their free agency are right. Given to them by their heavenly father takes faith, knowing that God had a reason to give us this gift, this gift of agency to choose for herself what is right and what is wrong, or to choose right from the wrong. I have the faith that he knew better than I what was best for my children. What experiences, no matter how painful they were, or how wrong they may have appeared to be, but it was best for my children to learn what they needed to learn by going through this experience of choosing for themselves. And I have the faith that my Children's trials are also a part of my journey of increasing my faith that God is conspiring in my favor and wanted me to go through this hurtful experience. My faith causes me to believe. Because my children are still doing so many good things in their lives that that counts for something good in my Heavenly Father's eyes. Knowing my Father, Heavenly Father, loves us and He loves our children more than we do. He will take into account the good things we and they do and he will not stand in the way of either opposition or joy. He judges us by our hearts. He wants us to have a broken heart. And I think that means to be humble and a contrite spirit. And I think that means showing sorrow for our objectionable behavior. And as Elder David Bednar, a leader In my church told us in a YouTube video I saw that I will put in the show notes that we may not all end up in the same place as our children because we may not want to be in certain places that we just assume that. would be the place that would bring us the more, the most joy. But I have faith that I have read in the scriptures that the hereafter will be a greater joy than what we can imagine. And so, reading the scriptures increases my faith, for I am looking for the parts of faith that resonate with me and give me strength, peace, and hope. So how do we acquire this thing we call faith? I told you about a belief, how we get a belief, and that's by thinking the thought over and over again that our minds just believe it. But, and, and so we automatically do this if it Faith is a thought or something that serves us or brings us peace. But faith is more of a gift. It is a feeling inside us that gives us emotional strength. If we didn't have faith, we wouldn't trust anything. Like our car starting when we wanted it to. And we would be living in fear so much of the time. A leader in my church told me that we come to earth to have joy. Joy that our car starts every day. But with that joy, opposition may come. And it may not start some days. Faith provides us with the ability To have the thoughts that this really isn't a bad thing to us. Or it's really, it's maybe just an inconvenience. But it's not really something that is detrimental to our emotional well being. Or that opposition doesn't happen. Because we did something bad, but faith gives us understanding that opposition gives us the opportunity to learn how to not only solve problems, but to practice in how to get through them. We hope for the best and have faith that my desired outcome. is predicated upon God's will because He really is the only one that knows what's best for me. So faith comes from getting through hard trials. I got through my child placing twin daughters for adoption. I got through having a child who is gay, being deprived of having a spouse and children that they so deeply would have liked. I have gotten through children making some very serious Life threatening, changing mistakes. And I'm getting through watching them deal with sometimes painful consequences. I hope that An eight year old child who is diagnosed with cancer will be cured, but that may not be God's desire. But I have the faith that God conspires in that child's favor. Perhaps his time on earth was finished, and he wasn't supposed to, or he didn't need to be cured. Maybe by not being cured, he was spared. being in a serious accident where he was paralyzed. Perhaps he will be spared from becoming addicted to heroin. Perhaps he will be spared sexual abuse. So when we have faith, we know, or believe, or trust that doctors can cure him. That God could interview. intervene and cure him or not. But because God conspires in our favor, the outcome will always be the best one in the long run for us. And that child. That is faith. Believing things work out exactly as they are supposed to. Faith is believing God has a plan of how to get every one of his children back to him. We are his offspring. Why wouldn't that be the most important thing to him? His work is to help get us back, and he has a plan for this. It may be the complete opposite of what we think that plan should be. Faith is believing in the end everything will work out for the best for everyone we need. To stay out of God's business, our responsibility is to stay in our business, becoming the best person we can become. We too often think it's our business to guide our adult children, but that may be Overstepping God's plan for them. I can only imagine how frustrated he becomes when we try to change his plan. We need to stick to his plan for us. To unconditionally love our children and help them focus. on what they are doing well and right in their lives. This will have greater influence on them than trying to fix them, or caution them, or hold back your belief in them that they are capable of figuring out on their own the direction. to take their lives. Hope, on the other hand, is more focused on a desire or expectation for a particular thing to happen. It's about looking forward to a positive outcome or change or believing that something good will come to pass. Hope is often associated with optimism. and a sense of possibility that it's possible that our children will come back into our lives. We hope for the best and have faith that that outcome is predicated upon God's will because he knows best even when it makes no sense to us. In hope, there is a small element of doubt as to whether it will happen or not. In faith, There is the conviction that it will all happen the way it is supposed to happen. There is a comfort to our souls to have hope, to believe that things never stay the same, that there is a 50 percent chance things will all work out to our liking, and to hang out in In the positive part of our brain, thinking of all the reasons of why and how things can get better. But it is faith that brings us true peace, faith that God knows best and that He conspires. In our favor, the future is unknown, but I have the faith that things are going to work out better than I ever could imagine. I wish you a Merry Christmas. I wish the best for you and your family. And I will talk to you next week. If you like this, this episode, And you felt it was of benefit to you, I ask you to share it with somebody that perhaps it could also benefit. But if you're still feeling kind of stuck, in that you don't know how to apply what was talked about, or where to start. On, on changing your thoughts, on changing your perspective, on bettering your relationship, get on a call with me and we can have a discussion and I can tell you how to apply it and where we start. And then you get to decide what you want to do. About this relationship that maybe you're struggling with with your adult children. There is no reason to go on the rest of our lives struggling with our relationships with our adult children. Let's assume the best. Let's assume that we all love each other and we're just trying to figure out how to maintain our own boundaries. and respect another one's. But I can help you with everything. So just go to bonnieleiman. com and book a call. I can't wait to hear from you. .