Agency and power...

I am reading a book right now called "Understanding the Power God gives Us: What Agency really Means" by Joseph Fielding Smith...

Something just came up, while bidding on an Ebay item that I was not only discouraged from making, but my dad even said, "You better hope that you lose!" I bid 50.03 on a Paul McCartney rareish CD called "B Sides Himself-A rare compilation of B-Sides and remixes" and won it for $43.55.

Now, to the point of this post: Do we often get ANYTHING in this life without taking a little chance? Oh sure, I suppose that I should tell you that the reason that I am buying it is for a girl. Not just any other girl that I may buy something for though, but a girl that is currently in Switzerland on an LDS mission.

Am I crazy?

To add more fuel to this slowly rising fire, she asked me not to even ask her out--before she left on her mission. However, she also told me that I could write to her (though she told me she probably wouldn't ever write back...). Faithfully I send her out a nice letter once a week and never do expect to receive anything in return.

The thing is, I don't think that when it comes to people of the opposite-sex that you really, necessarily are going to be able to accomplish what you want to do without taking some risks and having a little faith. I suppose that I have the option of going 2 different ways with this entry: faith and/or risks.

What I'm trying to say is that faith necessarily includes and involves some risk.

When Abraham was on Mount Moriah with Isaac he was definitely exercising faith when he raised his hand with a knife in it; ready to take his only son's life away. He didn't know the outcome of that event and had no way of knowing tat God would stop him before he brought-down the knife and sacrificed his son. He couldn't have known that God was going to stop him. If he had known that, then Abraham wouldn't have been the great example of faith that he is.

There was nothing but the certainty that he was going to kill his son. That is what makes his act so great and so faithful. Abraham was the epidomy of being faithful, and being faithful, one must be exercising his or her agency. That is what agency means: choosing eternal life over the sin that one is presented with. To exercise faith means to necessarily be risking.

Why I am going on about this is: Nothing comes to you without exercising faith. Not even little things, because everything requires that little risk.

Sure, I want my little French-speaking missionary to be pleased with my purchase, but I'm taking the risk that she won't or that she doesn't want anything from me or even that she is insulted at the very idea of me going out on a limb and buying her an expensive present--with no guarantee attached.

On the other hand... How could I NOT?

This means enough to me to offer at least a bit of faith...

JPS