Having Enough Faith

When I was much younger, I had a teacher in church claim that if we had enough faith, there would be no physical ailments in the world.  If people had enough faith, they could all be healed, and nobody would be sick or injured.

What?!?
 I knew immediately that something was so very wrong with this statement.  The idea that the only reason people have pain is that they don't have enough faith just struck me as so wrongheaded and judgmental, that I started to get kind of internally mad.  I didn't know what to do or say to diffuse this terrible idea.  I knew people who had physical disabilities.  I couldn't believe that the reason was that they just lacked faith.  I remember questioning the teacher, and he stood doggedly by his point.


The beginning of John 9 reads, "And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him."  This strikes me as the answer I was looking for.  The reason we have pain and suffering in this world is not due to sin or a lack of faith.  It's so the works of God can be made manifest.

The amazing thing is that I didn't connect this experience with my orientation.  I was a teenager, and still believed that I needed a miracle to change my orientation so I could lead a normal life.  But that wish eventually changed, and I learned that "normal" doesn't really mean what I though it meant.  More importantly, I learned that my orientation was not something that was caused by sin or lack of faith.  It just was what it was.  It didn't change who I was, it was simply a small part of who I was.

And now my reaction to those who claim that I need to have enough faith to change my orientation is similar. I don't doubt that anything is possible with the Lord, but pinning our hopes on getting changed in the way we currently desire by some miracle is a poor way to show faith.  We have to have enough faith to live the best we can, make the best choices we can, while being the people we are, repenting of our missteps along the way, and have faith in the atonement.