Service, Miracles, and Waiting on the Lord
Faith Matters resources to accompany your Come Follow Me study: June 29 - July 5
Christlike leaders serve the people they lead.
According to this passage, either I seek the Lord’s direction in all my service and respond to those situations as prompted, or I’m not His servant at all. Though I’d spent countless years pursuing what I believed was important church work, this scripture showed me that I can’t safely assume He approves of all my intentions. No, I need to know Him, to hear Him, to receive direct, daily guidance straight from Him. What a tragedy if I spend my life working “in His name,” only to end up like these people—sure I’m doing His will, but ultimately being cast out of His presence!
—Jaci Wightman, “The Observant Minister”
Jen and Sam Norton: Come As You Are
As FSY leaders, Jen and Sam began facing difficult questions about how to include and support youth with a range of perspectives and lifestyles. They wanted to affirm the wisdom of the standards set by the Church for youth, but they also noticed that many youth were driven away by fear of the exclusion they would experience if they fell short. Their story will be valuable to anyone working with youth, or who is interested in blending top-down and bottom-up approaches to Church callings.
The anguish and guilt we feel over any prodigal is sometimes so large that we don’t set it aside to do the real work of loving. Instead, we try to fix the situation ourselves. We try to save the one who is lost, preferably through kindness but sometimes through different, useless strategies. We might flirt with where guidance stops and coercion starts. It doesn’t work.
It is not my job to try to save the ones I love. There’s a Savior for that. My feeble efforts to “save” usually complicate the situation, and sometimes even leave wounds.
It is my job to extinguish my fear so that they don’t mistake my anxiety for unbelief in their capacity, strength, and resilience to face the world outside our home.
It is their job to boldly act. To embark. To explore. To choose. To experience.
—Miranda H. Lotz, “The Prodigal Cat”
An invitation to sacrifice is an opportunity to exercise my faith in Jesus Christ.
At first, the woman wanted to yell at the man. Didn’t he know that everyone was hungry? Didn’t he know that she was starving because she was giving most of her food to her son, who was also starving? And if she fed this man, that meant she would have nothing left for her boy? Wasn’t it obvious? Wasn’t his request preposterous?
But then she thought again. This was the end of her life either way. She only had enough food left for one person, one meal. She was going to die. Her son was going to die. And while this famine would take their lives, she was not going to let it take their dignity. They would remain kind to the very end. They would share even if they didn’t have enough to share. If they were going to die, they would die living like they deserved to live.
And that is the most remarkable part of this whole story: The widow fed Elijah. She was willing to die to save a stranger.
Tom Christofferson & Darius Gray: Witnesses from the Margins
In this session, two men sat down together: Tom Christofferson and Darius Gray. Both are devoted Latter-day Saints who know what it is to love the Church while also having experienced real marginalization within it. What you’re about to hear is a conversation between two men who have walked and who are walking long roads, who are holding hard questions, and who are bearing witness to a God whose work continues to unfold in their lives.
Three Gay Latter-day Saints, Three Paths: Ben Schilaty, Alisha Anderson, & Steve Perry
Today we’re honored to share a special session from Restore 2025 featuring Steven Kapp Perry, Alisha Anderson, and Ben Schilaty—three gay Latter-day Saints who have each taken different paths, and who share a deep commitment to following God with honesty, courage, and faith.
“If the Lord be God, follow him.”
Rivers dry up, life ends, crows fall from the sky. But God’s goodness continues forever and ever and ever. It is a stream that runs cool and clear through the desert. A jar of oil that cannot be emptied. A still small voice that pierces through winds, earthquakes, and fires. A kindness that persists through hunger and suffering. A drought cannot dry it. Death cannot kill it. Because the miracles of God are the fruits of his love. And his love fills the earth like weeds. And weeds will always find spots to grow. In crevices, on mountains, under shade, and in the sun. And if it ever feels like a miracle has stopped, another is about to begin.
—Scripture Stories for Little Saints, Episode 35
The Lord often speaks in quiet, simple ways.
I will never completely understand time. But when I can reject the idea of time as a series of gains or losses and instead look at the now, past, and future as sites of healing and redemption, it is easier for me to feel the beauty of non-modern time, to put aside the clock, to put away the notion of “options” or “maximizing time,” to release the annoyance I feel when my to-do list is disturbed by a child who should long ago have been asleep. Instead, I can see the face of God right now in that child, take her in my arms, and allow myself to feel eternity’s weight and wonder as an almost-sleeping child rests in my arms.
—Megan Armknecht, “Reckoning with Time”
