I always knew my faith was valuable, like the pearl Jesus talks about in Matthew 13, but I was under the false impression that this also meant it was fragile. I thought my faith was something that needed to be sheltered from criticism, that would get damaged or diminished if I didn’t stand up for it and protect it.
But while we were in Utah, God completely shifted my understanding of the power of His word.
Leading up to and during our trip to Utah, we had the privilege of diving deep into the almost abstract aspects of Christianity, the ones that tend to get punted to blind faith in the Church, like the Trinity and the reliability of the Bible. We cemented our understanding and learned the value of not just knowing truth, but being able to articulate it. When we went out to evangelize our first day in Salt Lake City, I was so nervous that I was going to misrepresent the gospel and push someone even farther from the true faith, all while committing heresy! I was caught in this tipping scale of wanting to be able to implement everything we’d learned in class, while also wanting to rely on the Holy Spirit.
Well, God knows our hearts. As we continued having conversations with people, it became so obvious that even though my partner and I were the ones speaking, God was the one working.
During one conversation in particular, I listened in awe as my partner and I talked to a young couple, and God revealed things to us in Scripture as we talked that I had never seen before! Verses my mom had me memorize in elementary school were now applicable to helping this person see the truth of the God of the universe!
There was never a moment when the Bible contradicted itself, or when the Word of God was challenged, and it never wavered. We asked people to point out what they thought were flaws or weaknesses in our faith, and God’s truth prevailed every time, shining the light of his word and illuminating the answers to questions. Regardless of how well I articulated it or how much I knew, the Bible met every challenge.
This whole experience showed me that God’s Word is a force to be reckoned with. We don’t need to worry about sheltering and protecting it from the world because it’s not our story, it’s Jesus’s story. It’s powerful not because of how eloquently we’re reciting and explaining it. It’s powerful because God has spoken it. It’s the living, breathing, unchanging word of God. It really is more precious than pearls and stronger than steel.
Bianca Broom, Class of 2027
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