[Misshalfway]

DigitalShadow,
I have really enjoyed reading this thread. I think that you make some great questions and you make them with sincerity.

My experience with faith is that it is a journey. I too, love Alma 32. Faith starts with a desire to believe...and only that. It is planting the seed.....watering it.....feeding it.....and it grows into a tree. And then comes the fruit...with its tremendous sweetness.

I am not the best debater in the world. I am sure there are sharper tools in the shed. But I do know my own experience has basically followed this analogy. My faith at its most basic parts starts with whether or not there is a God. I have wrestled with that question. And in my mind I wondered at times if there was a God, was He good? Cause frankly life does get hard and prayer and worship doesn't exactly give people immunity from really hard things. But I do know that there is a God. He has spoken to me in lots of different ways. I am learning that He knows me and loves me. Although, I doubt that too some days. But I have a desire to believe that He loves me and knows me. And so I ask Him to show me. I ask him lots and lots of questions. The more I ask, the more of His influence I feel and the more I am led to find what I need to push my faith into the realm of truly knowing. It is often said in the church, "line upon line, precept upon precept." I have found this to be true. One step at a time. One truth at a time.

I have also learned that desire to believe is essential. Being willing to go into the dark....into the not knowing.....trying it.....testing it.......hanging on until the light comes. This life is in the end a test of faith. Who will hang on and believe though the path is difficult. It is thru the trial of faith that builds the knowing. But at the core of the journey is the desire of the believer that drives the quest to "know".