What I can choose to believe?

Dealing with the Spiritual Slumps

By Darla Isackson

1. Lately I’ve been in a spiritual slump. Day after day the spiritual feelings haven’t come. I keep wondering what is wrong. I experienced such an outpouring of the Spirit for months after my son’s death, but right now I’m feeling nothing. My last few visits to the temple have been pleasant experiences, but haven’t birthed one spiritual feeling. I continue to read the scriptures, but inexplicably not one verse jumps out at me, not one ah hah! comes, not one spiritual reassurance brings tears of joy.

This morning I awoke with my mind full of possible answers. I suspect that faith is more a decision than a feeling. My feelings are fickle, and can change with the weather, with my level of physical well-being, with the ups and downs of daily life. I may feel some days that my spiritual efforts are fruitless, or that the Lord is simply not listening to me, but feelings are not facts. Yes, the Holy Ghost often speaks through my feelings—but so can the adversary! When I give the voice of the adversary any credence at all, the feelings that result may be discouragement, self-doubt, bitterness, disillusion, depression.

I have found in my recent circumstance that many times faith is a decision—the only decision that makes any sense. Some days I have made the decision in favor of faith simply because I couldn’t bear the misery of the alternative. Regardless, I am learning that I can choose in favor of faith no matter how I feel. My feelings may be strongly affected by physical maladies, fatigue, and negative thoughts. But my inner compass, my spirit self is not. I KNOW the gospel is true even when I do not FEEL it, and I KNOW it because I have the witness of countless others, a multitude of spiritual witnesses I have received myself, and a lifetime of evidence from trying an experiment on the word (see Alma 32). The latter is an example of the kind of action that springs from a decision to plant the seeds from which strong faith can grow.

When DOING Must Come Before KNOWING.

I recall a character in Gerald Lund’s Work and the Glory series named Will. He struggled for months trying to get his own testimony of the truthfulness of the Church and the Book of Mormon, but felt nothing. Finally, one day he came across a scripture that contained the words, “”If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God of whether I speak of myself.” (John 7:17) Will pondered the sequence of the words: “Do . . . . and then you shall know. . .” He finally recognized that he had been wanting to KNOW before he made the full effort to DO. But it is so often by the DOING that the KNOWING comes. When Will made the decision to be obedient, to move ahead and DO, the feeling of sure testimony followed soon after.

Following Alma’s advice to DO an experiment on the word is always the best way to learn whether the word is true. I have to plant the seed of faith, than nurture it, before I can feel the seed swelling and growing. I have to make the effort, make the decision, otherwise my ground is barren and nothing happens.

Sometimes the doing is simply affirming in the moment what my mind tells me is true and acting on it–regardless of my current feelings or lack thereof. One example is: when I choose to bear testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel when I think it is appropriate, the moment I carry out that action, the Holy Ghost greatly increases my feelings of testimony, and I am strengthened.

Corrie Ten Boom learned this principle in a poignant way. She and her Dutch family were incarcerated in a Nazi concentration camp for aiding the Jews. Later, Corrie became a traveling evangelist. After one meeting, where she had talked about the power of forgiveness through Christ, a former guard who had given she and her sister brutal treatment approached her. He thrust his hand out and said, “I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did in that camp, but I would like to hear it from your lips, as well. Fraulein, will you forgive me?”

Corrie knew she must forgive him, but said, “Still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion—forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. ‘Jesus, help me!’ I prayed silently. ‘I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling.’ And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in in my shoulder, seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes. ‘I forgive you, brother,’ I cried. ‘With all my heart.’ For a long moment we grasped each others’ hand, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely as I did then.” (Clippings from My Notebook, p. 92) Faith, like forgiveness, is not simply an emotion, but often requires of us a decision to act before the blessings flow.