cast not away therefore your confidence...

I'd like to quote Elder Holland in this beautiful adress he gave to BYU students years ago. "It is the plain and very sobering truth that before great moments, certainly before great spiritual moments, there can come adversity, opposition, and darkness. Life has some of those moments for us, and occasionally they come just as we are approaching an important decision or a significant step in our lives."

I have thought and pondered on these words lately. Many times, when we are tested at the brink of good things happening we mistakenly take it as a sign that we are either not worthy of the blessings, or it is some sort of signal that we won't achieve our wishes. Elder Holland suggests that being tested is necessary, and these very trials will bring us confidence in the end.

One thing we can always have confidence in, is the fact that Heavenly Father keeps His promises. Knowing the nature of our Heavenly Father gives us the ability to have condfidence in our own lives. We know that he desires to bless us in abundance.

Quoting President Hinkley, "we cannot sign on for a battle of such eternal significance and everlasting consequence without knowing it will be a fight—a good fight and a winning fight, but a fight nevertheless."

Rewards are so delightfully sweet when we have had to work to recieve them. This of course requires obedience and patience. With each reward, our confidence builds and we are prepared to be tested again.

"Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward."

“For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.”