Coming to Testimony like Enos

As I was reading Enos today, a few parts of it really struck me.

Enos 1:3 reads, "...the words which I had often heard my father speak concerning eternal life, and the joy of the saints, sunk deep into my heart."

After enough says this, he kneels down to pray and ask forgiveness for his sins all day long and receives a remission of his sins as well as hears the voice of God. There are many valuable lessons contained in only this part of the story. First off, I truly believe that this is how many of us start to have a solid testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Even if we live our whole lives with a knowledge of the gospel, like Enos--who remembered the words of his father, but clearly did not believe them for himself before this time--we must also pray to gain our own testimony. We may be praying about a specific part of the gospel we want to understand better, or we may be praying in general to gain our own testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Whatever it may be, we come to a real testimony in the same away: by exhibiting faith and then acting upon it.



All of this reminds me of a talk Elder Bednar gave when he was president of BYU-Idaho. He spoke on how vital it is for us to work everyday to keep our testimonies. If we don't continue to act on it, if we don't pray for guidance and strength from our Heavenly Father, if we don't recognize in humble gratitude those things that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have provided in our lives, then we will surely lose our testimonies over time. A testimony is like a fire. You must continue to feed a fire or else it will burn out.

All in all, I love Enos for his faith, diligence, and love of his fellow men (even his "enemies," the Lamanites). He exhibits such great faith that his will comes in line with the Lord's will, as in when he wishes for the scriptures to be preserved, which was clearly Heavenly Father's plan from the beginning. I know that if we, too, exhibit faith, Heavenly Father will guide our paths and provide us with our own strength.