Hank Smith: 00:05 Hello, my friends. Welcome to follow HIM Favorites. My name is Hank Smith. If you have been following follow HIM Favorites this year, you know that we are answering a single question from each week’s Come Follow Me Lesson. Well, this week we’re in the latter half of First Kings, First Kings 17, 18 and 19. I’m here with my cohost, John Bytheway. Welcome, John.

John Bytheway: 00:26 Thanks.

Hank Smith: 00:27 And we are going to look at a question. I want to build faith. How do I build my faith? These stories are full of people doing amazing things, because they have such deep faith in God. If a young person came to you, John, a young single adult, a YSA, if someone came to you and said, “How do I build my faith to become Elijah-like? How do I do that?”

John Bytheway: 00:51 Wow. There so many places you could go with that. I know that one of the things that President Henry B. Eyring said that blessed me a lot was that the reason you write things down in a journal is not for your trips and your trophies, but it’s to document the hand of God in your life, because I think it’s easy to forget that when the Lord has done something for you. Write it down and you remember it a little bit longer and you can go back and see that. Anyway, that’d be one thing. Just don’t forget. Keep a catalog of the things the Lord has done for you, maybe in a journal or write it down.

John Bytheway: 01:21 But I think another thing is to do the Gospel. I think we focus on knowing the Gospel a lot and years ago, I was trying to write a book on testimony and every general conference talk that I read about testimony included John 7:17. I bet you know what it is. “If any man will do, then he will know of the doctrine.” Right? It wasn’t just know the doctrine, but do the doctrine in order to know. And I think when we do the Gospel, our faith in the Gospel increases, because we start to see evidences of it.

John Bytheway: 01:52 It was Naomi Randall who wrote, “I am a child of God, teach me all that I must know.” It was President Spencer W. Kimball who said, “Let’s change that out to teach me all that I must do.” And then we’ve talked about President Dallin H. Oakes in October of 2000, The Challenge to Become. And I think they should change it to “Teach me all that I must be,” based on his talk because when we do what we know, we begin to become and we start to experience faith. We have experiences in the Gospel, not just, oh, I had a feeling, but I had an experience of the Gospel. And I love, Hank, a quotation that we both love, a man with experience or a woman with experience or a teenager with experience is never at the mercy of a teenager with only an opinion, but when you started to experience the Gospel.

Hank Smith: 02:40 Yeah, I knew it. I knew that God knew it and I could not deny it. That is one of the major basises of faith. I’ve had my own experiences with God. When I was a teenager, President Hinckley was basically the First Presidency. All my teenage years. I remember listening over and over and over, every six months it seemed, to President Hinckley give multiple talks in General Conference. And he used to say, quite often, “Faith is like the muscle of my arm. If I don’t do anything, it grows weaker. If I work it out, it gets stronger.”

Hank Smith: 03:14 If someone looks here at Elijah, you’re looking at the bodybuilder of faith when it comes to Elijah. He’s got faith muscles everywhere. And you look at that and say, “I want to be that.” Well, the only way you’re ever going to get there is by starting small. This isn’t a one day thing. No one goes from Hank Smith’s status to bodybuilder status in one day. You go there in a repetition at a time.

Hank Smith: 03:40 What I would say is if you want to have more faith, then do what John just said here and live the Gospel. Every prayer that you kneel down and say and you really mean, that is like a set in the weight room. That’s going to build your faith. Every time you attend the temple, that’s like going the gym. That’s going to build your faith. Going to the gym and working out. Every time you sit down and say, “I’m going to read some scriptures here for the next few minutes.” Those are repetitions, like doing curls or presses that are going to build your faith.

Hank Smith: 04:11 And you know very well, John, you and I both know that if you want to build those kind of muscles, it takes a lot of reps. It takes a lot over time. Now it’s going to happen pretty quick. Right? I notice when I work out. A couple of days, I’m like, “Hey, look at me. I’m looking pretty good.” But if I really want to get to Elijah type faith, I’ve got to be willing to put the time in. Time and effort.

John Bytheway: 04:33 Yeah. I love the idea of putting yourself in a place where the Lord can touch you. We had a painting in my house as a kid, Behold, I Stand at the Door and Knock. It’s like, “I love this.” Here, does God want to be in your life? Hello. He’s standing at the door knocking, right? But there’s no handle on the door. You have to open it up. When you do what you said, Hank, when you open up the Scriptures, when you get on your knees, you are opening up the door and giving the Lord an opportunity to touch your heart, to have some contact with you. And do that. Do that over and over again and I think that will help build your faith.

Hank Smith: 05:05 And like you said earlier, do it over and over and over again. Then, write it down when you see the hand of the Lord and your faith will grow to the point where you’re like Joseph Smith and you say, “I know it. I know that God knows that I know it. I can’t deny it.” Just this morning, John, my kids and I got up, packed, got in our shirt and tie and dresses and picked up a couple friends and went to the temple. Did we have any earth shattering, faith filling experiences? No, it was really good for us and it built our faith just another centimeter. And by small and simple things, that’s how you get that great faith.

John Bytheway: 05:39 Do the Gospel.

Hank Smith: 05:40 Yep, absolutely do the Gospel. We hope you’ll join us on our full podcast. It’s called follow HIM. Go to where you get your podcast. Type in follow him. You’ll find us. Come listen to the entire podcast. We’re interviewing this week Dr. Camille Fronk Olson. You’re going to want to be here for this. She is just one of the most incredible minds in the church. And then join us for follow HIM Favorites. Come back here next week. We’re going to do another follow HIM Favorites.