In this episode (also known as "Faith and Finances" or "Go and Do"), Leslie explains the importance and power of choosing faith over fear in facing life's storms. The cure for fear is not courage, but knowledge. Join her for a scriptural look at God's pattern for overcoming every challenge life throws your way. The principles are true, dependable, and sure. Discover exactly what to do when you just can't shake the fear.

Originally recorded August 3, 2019 at the LDS Mid-singles Conference held at the University of Utah Institute.

TRANSCRIPT:

Host: Welcome to the Rare Faith Podcast, where the solution to every problem is only an idea away, and where the same activity with just a little more awareness always yields better results. Award-winning, best-selling author, Leslie Householder, brings some of her best information to this inspiring series of life-changing episodes that you won't want to miss. Show notes for this episode can be found at a rarekindoffaith.com.

Speaker 1: Time to get started. We've got some chairs coming in. Somebody's still looking for one. Kimberly is gonna say something before we kick off, but I just want to make sure everybody has a chair. There's some chairs here. Everybody get your fans going.

Help the room. Help the room.

Kimberly: Okay, we're gonna get started. Thank you so much for coming. I hope you guys have been enjoying your day today, and if there's one class you could end on, this would be the one that I would choose.

I'm so excited to have Leslie Householder here. She is the international best-selling author of three books, The Jackrabbit Factor, Portal to Genius, and Hidden Treasures, and she has been helping and inspiring and teaching people about faith and finances since 2002. I personally have read her books and listened to her podcasts, and what she teaches has changed my perspective and how I see so many things.

So I'm super excited to have her here, and excited that you're here too, and so we'll let you have that. Thank you for coming.

Leslie: Thank you so much, Kimberly. I am glad to be here. I am excited to see all of you out on a warm summer day.

I come from Arizona.

This is nothing, but I'm proud of you for a long sleeve.

Anyway, so the title of the class is Go and Achieve, so I find out. It's, it is, it is. We're going to talk about that.

The name that I had given it when I put it together was Faith and Finances, but in all honesty, it's not finances that we're going to be talking about. It's faith, because the principles that we're going to talk about today are applicable to finances, relationships, health, their whole life can be affected and improved by applying these principles of faith more effectively, and the reason I titled it Faith and Finances is because that was my come from. That was my pain point when I discovered the principles and learned how to use them a little more confidently, and then I discovered that as I was teaching what I had learned, people were using it to apply in other areas of their life with equal success, and so that's what we're going to do today.

Just a little bit of an introduction. This is me and my family. This was taken in 2014.

They're all older and bigger now, but they are my pride and joy, and this was my dream. I just envisioned, since I was a little girl growing up, having a family and living happily ever after, and what a rude wake-up call it was to become an adult and start adulting and realizing that for many of us, especially me, the lack of resources to do what I envisioned would stop me every time to the point where I started to question my faith because I believed that if I was just good, that everything would work out.

If I was just good and obeyed the commandments to the best of my ability, that God would bless and prosper me in every way that he has prospered anybody, and so things were hard when we started out. They got to a point, and I'm not going to tell the whole story because it's too long, and I've repeated it so many times. You stick around.

You'll hear it eventually somewhere, but when I was going to college, one of the jobs that my husband and I did while we were in school trying to keep things together was doing janitorial work after school and in the night, and I used to clean Stephen R. Covey's office. I've never met the man, but I emptied his trash many times, and there were times that we would be emptying trash in different office buildings, and I would be so excited when somebody had thrown away part of their lunch.

That's where I was at, just feeling like, how do people do this? How do people do this? How do people have a car that starts?

How do people live in a place that doesn't have cigarette smoke coming through the walls? We're good people, aren't we? Why is this so hard?

I felt like I developed a relationship with my father in heaven early in school, in high school, that got me through a lot of hard things, but I felt like he just kind of vanished after I got married, after I became an adult and responsible for money things. I'm like, where is he? Where are those miracles?

Where is the fruit of my faith? Haven't I been keeping the commandments? Haven't I been doing everything I've been told I should do?

Where'd he go? Again, I'm going to be talking about money. It's not about money.

It's about faith, but if you can kind of transpose what I'm saying to whatever it is that you came to learn more about, I'm sure that you'll find some nuggets. So when money is tight, or when the blessing you're seeking isn't coming, and you want to have faith that the Lord will come through, you want to have faith that there will be a way. He promises there's a way for us to accomplish everything that he has asked us to do, right?

Well, what if he gives you something to do, and you're like, I'm trying. Why don't you lend me some help here, right? When we want to have faith that he will provide for us the way he promises he will, the common questions are, well, okay, how are you going to do it?

How are you going to help me? When's it going to happen? Why hasn't it happened yet?

Where are the resources going to come from? Or where is the blessing or the answer going to come from? And when we look around and we don't see answers yet, it's really easy to land on this conclusion that there's no way.

It's impossible. I mean, I know it's possible if he wanted it to, but apparently he doesn't want to because nothing's happening. Has anybody ever felt that way in any part of their life?

Or am I the only one? We conclude that our situation is beyond hopeless sometimes. And what's frustrating is that I was really trying to do only what I felt like God wanted for me, to do what I felt like he wanted me to do with my life.

And I was so consumed, though, with how are we going to get through the week? It's like he had these big visions for who we can become. We're here to become like him.

We're here to have life more abundantly, as Jesus promised. But when you're so focused on the problem right in front of you, it's almost like you can't see past it. You almost have to solve that so that you can get back to the big plan, right?

I just didn't feel like I had what I needed to accomplish his purposes in my life. And so here's what I've learned, is that when we get stuck, when we get to a place where we've done all we can do and we don't know where the next step is going to go or how we're going to get through it, if we are unable to do the next thing, then by all intents and purposes we are in bondage. And I bring this up because there are a lot of stories in the scriptures about people in bondage.

That theme is repeated over and over and over. Bondage to freedom, bondage to freedom, sin to repentance, slavery to freedom, over and over and over again. And there's a message in that for us in our situations as well.

And we're told to liken the scriptures unto us, right? We're supposed to find our answers to life's problems in the scriptures, but it can be kind of frustrating because the scriptures can feel cryptic or irrelevant. But when you really get into them, like I got into the story of Gideon and the Midianites, and we're going to talk about that today.

The Lord can just blow your mind wide open, which he did for me. So let's look at it. They were afflicted.

Gideon and his people were afflicted by the Midianites. They were in bondage and Israel was greatly impoverished because of them. And the children of Israel cried unto the Lord.

I felt impoverished. I cried unto the Lord. The Lord's answer, he said, thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I brought you up from Egypt and I brought you forth out of the house of bondage.

He's telling this to Gideon. Does anybody know when Gideon lived? A long time ago.

It was about 11 or 1200 BC. So the Lord is reminding Gideon that I brought Israel, who Gideon is a part of, I brought Israel out of bondage. Remember that.

Remember I've brought you out of bondage before. Well, for Gideon, when did Israel get out of bondage? Hundreds of years prior.

So it felt like ancient scripture to him. This is what was fascinating to me. We're going to look at how Gideon responds to the Lord when the Lord tells him, look, I've saved you before.

Well, that wasn't me. That was the Israelites. I'm here.

I'm now. What are you going to do for me? Right.

This is the first step to getting what you need is to remember what he's already done. Remember what he's done. How often do we see the scriptures?

Remember, remember, remember, because that is the first step to accessing the next blessing. He continues, and I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of all that oppressed you and drave them out from before you and gave you their land. He's delivered his people before and he asks us to remember how merciful he's been in the past.

In Moroni 10.4, who can tell me Moroni 10.4? Louder, somebody. What is Moroni 10.4 about?

Moroni's promise. He says, after you've received these things, if you'll pray about it, you'll find out if these things are true, right? Does anybody know what he says right before that?

Remember how merciful the Lord has been to the children of men throughout all time. First remember, then ask. It's such a simple little adjustment to the way we pray.

So here's Gideon's response. Well, miracles don't happen anymore. This is Gideon's answer.

And Gideon said unto him, oh my Lord, if the Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us? And where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of? But now the Lord hath forsaken us.

I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm like Gideon. And Gideon is ancient scripture to me. But he was thinking Moses is ancient scripture to him.

So Gideon was about 1150 BC. Moses was 1400 BC. So that's 300 years earlier.

Abraham, 2100 BC. And then Adam and Eve about 4000, we estimate. So Gideon had a lot of history that he could review to gain some faith.

But to him, it was just like, oh, but that's scripture. What do I get now? What can I do now to access that same kind of faith and those miracles?

So here's the plan. You know, when I was told the story of Gideon and the Midianites, and I think it was verbally shared with me before I really, I'm sure I studied it in seminary. I don't remember studying that.

But when I heard the story, I'm like, wait a minute, are you sure that's in the Bible? And I had to go look and read it. I'm like, oh my word, it is in there, just like they said.

He says, the Lord looked upon him and said, go this in thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. This is like his patriarchal blessing. This is what is promised if he will trust and go in his might.

And he said unto him, oh my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? Behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house. He's giving his excuses why it's impossible or why it's hard.

He's got his excuses. We have our excuses. And I want you to notice in the slide before, thou shalt save Israel, he's telling what is in the future, what's possible.

He's giving him a possible future. Whatever it is that you need or want next in your life, that is your possible future. So when you think about that, what comes up is that, yeah, well, I tried that before.

Yeah, well, that didn't work. Yeah, well, I don't know how that's going to happen. We have our excuses as well.

So here's what the Lord did. He said unto Gideon, the people that are with thee, your army is too big. Lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, mine own hand hath saved me.

He said, you've got 32,000 men, and that's too many. You're going to go conquer the Midianites, but you've got too many men in your army. Because if you win with 32,000 men, you're going to think it was you.

And I want you to know it was me. So the idea that this challenge in front of you is bigger than you is perfect. That's just the way God wants it to be for that reason.

Basically saying, you've got too much going for you. Let's reduce you a little bit so that the next thing that happens that you witness is me, and you will know it was me. He wants to be recognized.

So capacity is not the advantage. It's not what you've got going for you that matters. In this case, two-thirds of his army were fearful, and one-third were courageous.

So he told Gideon, go to your army, and he says, find out who's afraid. Who's afraid to go to battle against the Midianites? And whoever's afraid, send them home.

You're better off with a small army without fear than a giant army with some fear. So what is the limiting factor in someone's ability to experience a miracle? It's the fear.

Send the fear away. That is a switch in our brain that we entertain or we turn off. And you're going to see through the rest of this presentation the theme of how critical that piece is.

You eliminate the fear, and God can do anything in your life. With the fear, he can do much less. So he went and he sent the ones home that were afraid.

And then the Lord said unto Gideon, your people are too many. He had 10,000 now, and there were still too many. He says, the people are too many.

Bring them to the water. And the number of them that drink water by going down, send them home. And those that bring water to their mouth, keep them.

He had 300 men in his army left. He had 300 men out of 32,000. You're Gideon.

What are you feeling about now?

Guest: Yeah.

Wow. Right. Very nervous.

And he was. We look at these ancient prophets like, oh, they were just amazing, and I'll never be like that. Gideon was like us.

He was terrified. He was terrified. And the Lord said unto Gideon, by the 300 men that lapped, I will save you and deliver the Midianites into thine hand.

Again, will save you. This is future tense. Here's what is in your future if you continue to follow what I'm telling you to do.

By the small thing that you have left, by the meager contribution you have to make, I will save you. So here's the plan in summary. And this plan is a formula.

It's a revealed formula for solving all of our seemingly impossible challenges. Send the fear away and then come unto Christ, the living water. I look at that water as symbolic.

It may be only me that thinks that, but I see that as symbolic of coming unto Christ. This is because God wants us to learn that our victories are his. The new curriculum for the church has been, come follow me.

We get that. We understand kind of what it means to come follow Christ. It means learn of him.

It means doing what he does. It means serving the way he serves. Follow him.

Do the things that he did. The part that we struggle with is how do we send the fear away? How do you turn that off?

How do you turn that off? So 10,000 is reduced to 300. So he retained those 300 men and the host of Midian was beneath him in the valley.

So there's the enemy down below. He's got 300 men. He's been told, he's been promised that this great miracle is going to happen in his life.

He has no idea how this is going to work. He's terrified. How do I know he's terrified?

Because the Lord addresses it in an upcoming slide. So victory is declared and it came to pass the same night. So he sent the 10,000 home except for the 300 and they go to bed.

And that same night the Lord said, arise, get down to the host for I have delivered it into thine hands. What do you notice has shifted from the first two times he says what's going to happen and this? Future tense is now present tense.

The battle hasn't even begun and God has declared it done. I have given you the Midianites into your hands. Gideon's just observing this.

He's getting this information in and he's thinking oh if I'm him I'm thinking oh what's going on? What are we going to do? So sometime between their trip to the water and that night something shifted with the Lord and I believe it's because Gideon was obedient.

So here's your promised blessing as long as you're obedient. You keep being obedient and there's going to come a moment where I'm going to say it's done. Get ready and let's make this happen.

So it goes from what God will do to what God has done. All before the work itself begins. I call it staking a claim.

I call it staking a claim. It's a pulse of intention that ripples out and prepares the way for effectiveness in goal achievement. It's that quality decision.

You have a vision for something you want to accomplish in your life and you're thinking okay well if I, you have these instinctive thoughts that if I do this and this and this then that's going to get me closer to that. But as you get closer and closer and closer you're still thinking that might happen, that might happen, that might happen if I get closer and closer. You know getting the education I need to accomplish that thing or making the connections that would need to happen for that to come through.

But then there's this moment where you have to look at it and say it's a done deal. I'm doing this. I am going to do this.

I'm going to see this through if it takes till the day I die depending on its importance and eternal significance right. So it prepares the way for effectiveness and goal achievement whether it's for finances, health or relationships. It's declaring the desired result as though it's already happened.

As though it's already happened. What does that look like? What does that look like in relationships for example?

I pray for my children and their spouses. They're not married yet. You see an application for that.

Praying for their spouse as though they have one. I think that's following a pattern that the Lord has taught us. God does this all the time in fact.

Why did Adam call Eve, Eve? Because she is the mother of all living. Had she had any children yet?

She is. It's the power of present tense. What about the temple tax?

So situations where God has demonstrated reasons why we don't need to fear and I'm going to shift gears a little bit. Now we're going to talk about those questions. How, where, why, what, when.

You don't have answers to this but we have to believe and trust that God has something prepared for this to work. Do you remember the disciples were with Jesus and they were worried about their temple tax? And he's like, why are you worried about the temple tax?

Go pull out a fish. And what did he find in the fish? A coin.

He says take this coin and go pay your temple tax. Let's get on with it. Let's get back to why we're here.

It says in Matthew 17, they that received tribute money came to Peter and said, does not your master pay tribute? He said, yes. And Jesus said, lest we should offend them, go to the sea, cast a hook, take up the fish that first comes up and when you've opened his mouth, you shall find a piece of money.

Take that and give them for me and you. Go pay the tax. Let's get on with our ministry.

So I've been teaching and helping people understand how they can turn off fear and what happens when you do. I just want to share with you a couple of examples. Here's a woman.

She was at age 60. She says, I make $15 an hour. I have zero savings retirement.

I own no property. I have a huge IRS debt. As of Saturday, I had about a hundred dollars to last me until my next check nine days later.

Then on Sunday, I got an email. I was overdrawn by $18 because a yearly emergency road service renewal had come out. I called immediately and they said they were going to reverse it, but it would take until that next check to get it back.

She says, I admit that for most of the day, I was pretty grouchy about it. Although later in the afternoon, I did finally start repeating, I choose to believe. Trying to coach her own mind to put the fear away.

I choose to believe. When I knelt in prayer that night, I wept but expressed gratitude for as much as I could possibly think of. Remember?

Remember what he's done. Find gratitude first. Now backing up, she says at Christmas time, a friend had given her a Monopoly game.

It was a surprise gift at her door. She had set it up on end against her bookcase so that she could vacuum. And after she had prayed for help with this gratitude first and declaring, I believe, I choose to believe that there is a way to get through this.

She was vacuuming and she noticed that the lid was slightly open, revealing some of the contents inside. Her daughter's family arrived for a birthday party and the grandson saw the box and asked if we could play Monopoly. My daughter happened to glance down at it.

She says, wow, they are really making Monopoly money look so realistic these days. She went over to the box and said, mom, this is real money. She had had this box from Christmas and I don't know how long, how much time had gone by.

I feel like it was summertime when they finally have it out. They decide to play it, pull it out the day that she's needing this help, and she starts counting. It was a lot of money.

I started sobbing. Twenties, tens, fives. I started counting, but I couldn't focus for the tears.

I handed it all to her. She counted $300. The fish, the coin, the money in the Monopoly game.

The point is you don't have to know where it's going to come from when you need a miracle. You don't have to know. Here's another one.

I received a certified letter in the mail, which I first ignored thinking it was just another notice from the IRS. This is someone whose husband had a stroke and they were struggling and she was trying to keep herself together, keep their life together with the stroke and his inability to work and everything. She started practicing turning off the fear, praying with gratitude, believing that she already has what she needs, even though it hadn't happened.

She got a letter from the IRS. When she finally picked it up, it says that a previously unknown retirement was waiting for me at a university where I had taught for 15 years. I had worked part-time and had been told that part-time and adjunct instructors received no retirement.

Yet here was a certified letter informing me of a lump sum which had been held for me for years and growing without my knowledge. That unexpected retirement was close to $24,000, equivalent to one year's salary that my husband made as a part-time job before his stroke. And then fast forward.

While my husband was still in intensive care, I ordered some medical equipment, didn't know how I would pay for it. But then I received a call from my retirement account informing me that they had discovered another $5,000 plus what was owed me. This was exactly the extra amount I needed.

I realized that when we were so stressed about money and so worried about money, I was so focused on what's going to happen if we don't have what we need by Friday. And I'm visualizing the phone calls that I'm going to have to make, or are we going to get kicked out of where we live, we're going to, I don't know if they can take your car if you already own it, but it was a 1969 Beetle. We worry what's going to happen if we don't get what we need.

And that's what prevents him from giving us what we need. So I'm going to fast forward a little bit. God understands that we struggle with fear.

He understands that he will declare what's possible and he knows that we're going to have fear. It's human nature. It's the natural man that we're trying to overcome is to have fear.

And so, and this was kind of exciting to me because I've been sharing this story for over 10 years in presentations. And every time I've shared this story, it's like, look, he reduced it from 32,000, the men to 10,000 to 300, and then miraculously they win. But what I discovered this week as I was preparing for this presentation is something new that I hadn't seen before.

How many times have I read this story and I didn't see this before, but that he understands our fear. Before their victory, this little piece is added, but if thou fear to go down, go thou with thy servant down to the host. He's like, if you're afraid, go to the Midianites.

Why? Why would he say go to the Midianites? Walk down to the Midianites with your servant.

Here's why. Hear what they have to say. Listen to the Midianites.

Listen to what they're saying. God's already got a remedy in place for the fear because the fear is the limiting factor. He says, if I can just get you to not fear, I can help you have miracles in your life.

If I can get you to not fear, then I can do what you're asking or what you're praying for. I can do that, but you've got to get rid of the fear. So he says, listen to what they have to say.

And afterwards, thine hands shall be strengthened to go down to the host. In other words, I'm going to give you this victory, but send the fear away. Men who are afraid need to go.

With what you have left, I'm going to give you this victory. If you have fear, I want you to go alone with your servant to the host. Listen to what they're saying, and then you'll have the strength.

Well, he didn't know what to expect. He didn't know what was going to happen when he got there. Wherever the Lord prompts us to go, even if it's to the enemy.

In other words, he's facing his fear. He's going to go face his fear. What he hears when he gets there, Gideon obeys.

He goes down with his servant to the outside of the armed men that were in the host. And he overhears two guys talking. One guy's had a dream, and he shares this dream with his friend.

And he said, I had this dream that this barley cake rolled down and smashed up all the Midianites. And he's like, really? And he's like, what does it mean?

And his friend says the way he says it. This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon up there. This is the sword of Gideon, a man of Israel, for into his hand hath God delivered Midian and all the host.

Who is saying this? Who just said this dream represents Gideon's sword and his host destroying the Midianites? Who's saying this?

One of the Midianites is saying this. That was fascinating to me. The Lord's like, you go down and listen to what they're saying.

He gets a second witness from the enemy themselves that the Lord has given him into his hands. So he goes back up to his army and he's like, he finally believes. He returns to the host of Israel and says, arise for the Lord hath delivered into your hand the host of Midian.

He believes. And now that he believes, God can do his work. What does this have to do with us?

Well, the rest of the story is he goes down there with his army. They have empty pitchers with lanterns inside. They have trumpets.

And on his cue, they all blow their trumpets and smash their pitchers. The host of Midian wake up confused. I think they were probably confused, disoriented and start killing each other.

And so with his 300 men just causing a ruckus, they kill each other and they win. So it is kind of funny, but the Lord said every man soared against his fellow, even throughout all the host. So the Lord is aware of you.

I want you to get this. That was 1150 BC. Fast forward to 2000 plus AD.

Or even we'll speed up to the Doctrine and Covenants era, the 1800s. The Lord is aware of you. He says in D&C 67 one, behold and hearken, O ye of my church who have assembled yourselves together, whose prayers I have heard and whose hearts I know and whose desires have come up before me.

He has what you need. He says, mine eyes are upon you and the heavens and the earth are mine in my hands and the riches of eternity are mine to give. Why we don't receive.

We're promised, ask and you shall receive. That's repeated through the scriptures, ask and you shall receive. And we're like, yeah, well, I've asked and not received many times.

How can I believe that when I've done it so many times and didn't receive? He answers this in D&C 67 three, he endeavored to believe that you should receive the blessing which was offered unto you. But behold, verily I say unto you, there were fears in your hearts and verily this is the reason you did not receive.

If turning off the fear really is as simple as flipping a switch in our brain and choosing faith instead. And I've found that it can be that simple when we are feeling fear and worry. And I want to believe, but I can't find it.

I can't find it. I can't generate it. I can't make it happen.

If I just speak it, I choose to believe as Elder Holland says, we get credit for trying and it's enough. And as we practice this, as we exercise this in our life, by choosing to believe that the Lord has us, choosing to believe that he is guiding us, choosing to believe that what he has promised us will be fulfilled as we keep moving our feet and believing, obeying where we can, the way Gideon did. He didn't know how it was going to pan out.

He didn't know how it was going to work, but he was obedient. And when he had fear, God had a remedy for that. I will help you not fear because as long as you turn off the fear, when it shows up, I can keep working in your life.

Boyd K. Packer says this, there are two kinds of faith. One of them functions ordinarily in the life of every soul.

It is the kind of faith born by experience. It is the kind of faith that relates us with confidence to that which is scheduled to happen. He says there is another kind of faith rare indeed.

And now, ever since I saw this, I've just been calling it rare faith. When I think about having the kind of faith that causes things to happen, I call it rare faith because Boyd K. Packer says it is rare, but we're invited to learn it, practice it, and benefit from it.

He says this is the kind of faith that causes things to happen. It is the kind of faith that is worthy and unyielding, and it calls forth things that otherwise would not be. It is the kind of faith that moves people.

It is the kind of faith that sometimes moves things. It's the kind of faith that puts 300 real dollars in a monopoly box. It's the kind of faith that prepares the way for this woman whose husband had a stroke to have this unexpected retirement waiting for her.

He says it comes by gradual growth. It is a marvelous, even a transcendent power, a power as real and as invisible as electricity. Directed and channeled, it has great effect.

You're getting a handout. Yeah, you have a question.

Guest: I was raised Catholic and I converted, but one time one of the priests was giving a talk to college students in Boston, and he asked what do we pray for, and he said we pray for faith. And then he moved on. He's just very simple about it, and this now makes sense to me now.

Leslie: Wow.

That's what we pray for. We pray for faith.

The question is what should we pray for, and the pastor's response was we pray for faith, and then he moved on because that covers everything. It covers everything, and something else. I used to be in the preparedness.

I had a calling in preparedness. What do they call it? Emergency preparedness, and I noticed something when I was in that calling, and that is that what is the promise?

If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear, because that is the factor that determines whether God will continue to provide for you. If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear. It's not if you are prepared, you shall not suffer.

You shall not starve. You shall not die. It's he shall not fear because that is the greatest gift that we can have, that gift of faith, which comes by choosing to not fear.

Here's something that I struggled with for a long time. I know I'm not supposed to fear, but what do I do with it when I have it, and we are getting to that, but when you're supposed to not do something, you got to replace it with something you do do. Otherwise, you're focused a lot on it, right?

So if I'm not supposed to fear, how do I not fear? Well, what if I'm fearing, and then I'm fearing about fearing, you know, and so what I found out is that it's called keeping calm. Keep calm like those t-shirts.

Keep calm. I've got a mantra now that's keep calm and watch what happens. Keep calm and watch what happens.

That next thing that shows up in your life, you're like, whoa, what do I do with this? Keep calm and watch what happens because if you're calm, if you take a deep breath and trust God, then he can do something for you. Here's the thing.

By keeping calm and by turning off the fear, the outcome changed because of you. You change the outcome by choosing fear or faith. We don't have faith because the outcome is going to be a certain thing.

That outcome becomes that certain thing because we chose faith. So bring me back. What was I saying just before that?

Oh, prepared. If you're prepared, you shall not fear. There was another one.

Oh, so the other opposite of fear, it's not courage. It's keeping calm or what does Christ say when there's a tempest? Peace, be still.

Peace, be still. There was a time where I am, I plan on sharing this, but there was a time where my life was in this chaos, turbulent, mostly in my head. I was worried about things.

I was angry about some things. I was frustrated about some things. My brain wouldn't turn off about it.

It was just constantly reliving what had happened, worried about what might happen next, and just in this tempest in my head. I was angry. I was not pleasant to be around.

I thought, I need to go to the temple. I thought, I can't go to the temple feeling this way. I'm like, no, that's exactly why I need to go to the temple.

I went through the whole session hoping to hear something that would take that anxiety, those fears, the anger away. I didn't want it. I wanted to be free of it, but it didn't go away.

So through the session, I'm listening and nothing, and so I'm angry about that. I get to the celestial room. I was just, I don't know, I've never experienced anything like it before where there was a storm in my head with all these thoughts.

It was like overcome with it. I remember thinking, there is no way the Lord can get through to me while I'm feeling this way or while I'm thinking this. All these horrible things about other people, and just I'm so off, and He can't reach me because I know how I'm supposed to be to feel the Spirit, and I'm not that right now.

And the minute I thought, there's no way He can get through to me, I heard the words in my mind, peace be still, and it was all gone. It was gone that fast. It wasn't me making it go away, but I remembered peace be still, and that was enough.

So to turn off the fear can be that simple, and if it doesn't feel that simple, and you tell yourself peace be still, and nothing changes, you speak it out loud, and if nothing changes, you remember Elder Holland who said that we get credit for trying, and it's enough because of the enabling power of the Atonement. So it's funny because I've been hearing all my life all these scriptures, peace be still, and asking you shall receive, and I'm like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but what about my situation, Gideon, right? So this is going to be kind of cool.

For those of you who can't see this piece, don't worry because on your sheet that you just got on the handout, under freebies at the bottom, it gives you a link to where you can watch. Okay, we got a front row that needs some more handouts. Are we out?

If you didn't get one, come up to me or Carrie afterwards, and we'll make sure you have the information you need. Okay, rarefaith.org is where you can watch a whole hour-long presentation on this little piece. I'm just going to touch on it, but you can go watch all of it at the website rarefaith.org.

So this is a diagram that can help you know how to have more faith and less fear, and I think you're going to see what I mean. So this was developed by a man by the name of Dr. Thurman Fleet in the 1930s. He was the originator of something called concept therapy, and people have used this in psychology and stuff to help people with behavior modification, but this is a model for the mind.

It's a symbolic representation of our mind and how our mind works, and the reason a symbol is so powerful is because if I were to say, what is the sum of 6,542,362.09 and 7,455,362.91? What's the sum? Someone in here is savant and knows the answer.

No? I really don't know the sum.

Guest: The sum is x.

Leslie: There you go. It's x. He is right.
He is right. What would help you solve that problem? Is it a hard problem?
A calculator. It's not a hard problem. It's addition, but what does a calculator do for you?

If I write it down, right, it gives you a symbolic representation of what we're doing, and you can manipulate that, and so in other classes where I've taught this, they'll say, well, write it down. I'm like, okay, so I'll take a marker on the whiteboard, and I'll say, what is the sum of 7,000, and I'm writing it out in words. That's symbolic.

I'll write it out, and in words, it still isn't useful, and what this did for me is it helped me understand faith. I've read scriptures. I've read books.

I've read personal development, business development, all these things that were supposed to help me solve the money problem, and so many great nuggets in there, but it was just too much to try to make it all happen at once, you know, and what this did was it boiled it down into symbolic form, so I could actually do something with it, so this is a model of the mind. On the top is your intellect or the conscious part of your mind. Down here is the subconscious.

I'm going to also call it the heart and the body. The body is a tool of the mind. It's a tool of the mind.

The outer conditions, and this is by James Allen. He wrote a book called As a Man Thinketh. Spencer W.

Kimball quoted it in his book, The Miracle of Forgiveness. He says, the outer conditions of a person's life will always be found to be harmoniously related to his inner state. Men do not attract that which they want, but that which they are, so how this looks in the stick man, I call it stick man.

He says, the outer conditions of a man's life are always found to be related to his inner state. Men do not attract that which they want consciously, but that which they are in their heart, and so your results are going to be a reflection of what's going on in the heart, and so we're praying, and we're praying consciously, and we're doing things that we think are going to solve the problem, but until our heart is free of the fear, our results will reflect the fear and the effects of that fear.

So as Proverbs says, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. See, I believe God wants to bless us and help us more than we allow, but he requires our faith. So here's why we kind of get stuck.

We have these five senses that take data in. It's represented by five antennae on the top of the mind model. We see, hear, taste, touch, smell, whatever our results are, I'm going to call them X results, we're going to do the X thing, so they're X results, and they're a reflection of what's going on in our subconscious mind or in our hearts, and we get stuck because we take data in through our five senses, and we decide whether something is possible based on the evidence that we see, and here's what this looks like. We're looking at our results, and we're taking the information in through our five senses, and we're like, I don't have enough money, there's creditors calling, or my relationships are broken, or whatever the data is that we're taking in, and from that input, we derive our conclusions about what's possible. So the question is, how do we feel about the way things are?

When you look at life, your life, the way it's come to be so far, how do you feel about that? Whatever emotion we have to that data input, either way, whatever it is, that emotion is going to instruct our subconscious mind to help keep giving us more of the same, and here's why. The subconscious mind has one job, one overarching job, and that is to keep you alive.

It's the part of our brain that keeps us breathing at night and our heart beating all day long. Its job is to keep us safe and alive, and when it perceives something is dangerous, it throws up reactions. It gives us adrenaline when we're watching the scary movie, because it doesn't know that what you're watching isn't real.

It's trying to save your life. It gives you adrenaline. That's how automatic it is.

So what if an opportunity comes along that's going to actually solve the problem you've been praying for, but it's perceived to be dangerous? You're going to retreat from it. So images that we take in of what's going on in our life come into our mind, and if we have an emotional reaction about it, in my case, I would be angry that we were still broke.

I'd be angry that we didn't have what we needed. I'd be frustrated that that job loss happened or that that car accident happened or that medical bill had to happen. I would react with anger, and what I didn't realize is that I was teaching my subconscious mind.

I was reinforcing in my heart that it was important to have these experiences, which was really bizarre, and I don't have time to explain that. That's in the video. I hope you'll get a chance to watch it, but moving forward really quickly, by whatever it is that we've given our subconscious mind to have more of, we get more of the same.

So the first step to intercepting this cycle, how to have faith, is you've got to use this ability of the conscious mind to imagine. Our conscious mind can imagine things. It processes things.

It adds meaning to things that happen to us. We decide if something was good for us or bad for us by our conscious choice, like, oh, that was a good day because of X, Y, and Z, or that was a bad day because someone said X, Y, and Z. You know, we're adding meaning, but the first step to faith is to imagine how the problem looks solved.

What does it look like solved? In God's words, I've given you the Midianites into your hands. That's what it looks like solved.

The battle is won. In my case, here's what I ended up using over and over again, and I can't remember a time that it ever failed. If I saw a bill coming due and I didn't know where the money was going to come from, instead of worrying about where the money was going to come from, I would stop.

I would imagine, and here's what I'm doing in my head. I'm picturing this little stick man because this is a symbol that helps me. It's a tool for helping me think the way I need to think to qualify for the blessings that God is trying to give me.

I would think, okay, what does it look like with this solved? Well, the bill would be paid. What does that look like to have the bill paid?

That looks like me calling my husband and saying, honey, it's paid, or it's, what are we doing after it's paid? Well, we're not thinking about it anymore. What are we doing instead?

We're having dinner. Whatever it is, feeling like, oh, there, that was amazing how the Lord did that, not even knowing what he's going to do, just imagining how it's going to feel that it's done. And by doing that, I'm thinking about it.

I'm thinking it is possible. I have what I need. I have all I need.

And by putting that in this place, because this is what controls what's going to show up out here, by adding the emotion of gratitude that it happened before it's even happened, that's faith. To be grateful for something before it's happened is faith. And that gratitude is the emotion that puts it where it needs to go so that the results are more automatic, affected by what God can do in your life.

And so, again, faith precedes the miracle. And you'll find out that the results become a reflection of that new faith. Elder Russell M.

Nelson said, if you really want a certain blessing, you better find out what the laws are that govern that blessing and then work on becoming obedient to those laws. As we've heard in D&C 130, there is a law irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world upon which all blessings are predicated. And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.

We don't have time to do the thing with the numbers that you just got handed. Go to rarefaith.org when you have a chance and find the visual aid that changed everything video. The visual aid that changed everything, it's at the bottom, and you'll see the exercise that we would have done with the numbers.

So, what are the laws for receiving? Again, ask in faith, nothing wavering, doubt not, fear not, have faith in Christ. What can he do when we have this kind of faith?

He can soften the hearts of creditors. He can lead you to a better job. He can help you get a raise.

He can spare you from catastrophes. He can keep your car running longer. He can lead you to answers.

And we've got just a few minutes left, and I want to go over seven laws. Seven laws that can help with improved financial wellness or any other thing. Like I said, this was my come from, but it applies to anything.

In my research, I came upon these laws that helped me stay in faith when fear tried to overtake me. These are the names by which I learned them. You can learn more about my sources in my book, Hidden Treasures, Heaven's Astonishing Help With Your Money Matters.

It's a free download at rarefaith.org. But the first one is the law of perpetual transmutation. This is the one that says that everything is either moving into form or out of form.

Nothing is staying the same, and these things are happening in response to the way we think, whether we're having faith or fear. The thing that we're trying to realize in our life, as long as we are seeing it done and looking forward to it and moving forward in faith that it's going to work out, then everything we need to accomplish that is also being orchestrated on the other end. And when we say, oh, that'll never happen, it starts to dissipate again.

There's this perpetual transmutation going on. Brigham Young said, when we are in the spirit world, if we want to visit Jerusalem, there we are looking at its streets. If we want to behold Jerusalem as it was in the days of the Savior, there we are, and we see it as it existed spiritually.

For it was created first spiritually and then temporarily, and spiritually it still remains. And so, what we are doing is we're co-creating with God by living these laws and applying the faith. And as we believe and see and have this faith, everything we need is starting to gather.

There's unseen hope. The next one is the law of relativity. Nothing we go through is either good or bad until we compare it to something else.

And this is why Joseph Smith, when he was in jail, and he's saying, where are you? God says, you're not quite as bad off as Job was. He's using the law of relativity to help Joseph feel better, because with feeling better comes increased faith, because with increased faith, God can perform more in our life.

The law of vibration, or it's a frequency concept. Thoughts are pulses of energy that emit like a broadcast and affect the way that people feel when they are around you. It opens doors.

It tunes you into the broadcast of solutions, promptings, and genius ideas that God has for you. You'll be guided as you bring your thoughts in closer harmony to God's thoughts. What's that?

Good vibes. Yes. Law of polarity.

The law of polarity says that contained in every adversity is the seed of equal or greater benefit, as Napoleon Hill explained. So, this was one of the for me, because we had plenty of catastrophes happening in our life regularly. It's like, I couldn't figure out why.

You get up, and you're beat back down again. You're beat up again, and again, and again. And I thought, why?

And as soon as I learned this one, and something happened, trying to remember what the first one was that showed up after I learned this one. I can't remember, but it shows up. And the first thought was, oh, this is awful.

You know what that means? That means that by law, there is something amazing contained in this. Let's look for that.

And if you're looking for the blessing contained in it, law of perpetual transmutation activates, and then it starts bringing you the things that are good contained in it. When the bad happens, and all you see is the bad, you just keep getting beat up. And why put yourself through that?

When you can find the benefit or start expecting to find a benefit in it, then your life will begin to shift. And in this scripture, the point is that even if the very jaws of hell shall gape, open the mouth wide after thee, know thou that all these things shall give thee experience and shall be for thy good. The bad things are good for us.

And when we start to think like God does about our challenges, then we tune in more to His broadcast of solutions on what to do next. The law of rhythm. Hard times won't last.

It says there is a season for everything, not permanence. There's a time for everything and a season for everything. If you're having a hard time, just knowing that all of these things are seasonal helps you imagine, well, what's it going to look like when it's not like this anymore?

And then the law of perpetual transmutation activates, and what you want to happen, the better times start moving towards you more quickly. You know, nobody goes to the ocean and sees the tide going out and says, oh my gosh, the water is disappearing. They know it'll come back.

Right? They know it'll come back. And that is the same thing with your circumstances.

If things are rough with friends right now, they're not going to be rough forever. If things are hard with your family right now, they're not going to be hard forever. But do you see how believing that starts the process to help you realize that?

Same with money. Law of cause and effect. This is one of my favorites.

I realized that when I could see the end that I intended of whatever goal I was trying to achieve, I used to think that I had to go the distance. I had to go the extra mile. I had to be superhuman, do the Olympic thing to be amazing and muscle my way through to the end of that goal.

When I learned this one, that every time I take a step in the right direction, the thing I want takes a step toward me. And now I don't have to go the distance. I made it in the middle.

And that just was psychologically easier for me to keep going and have that faith. So a reminder. Behold, he says, I am God.

I am a God of miracles. And I will show unto the world that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever. And I work not among the children of men, save it be according to their faith.

He's the same for Moses's time, for Abraham's time, for Gideon's time, for Joseph's time, and for our time. For if there be no faith among the children of men, God can do no miracle among them. And it starts with faith.

It changed the way I pray. I used to pray, help me, please save us from this disaster that's going to happen if we don't get what we need by the end of the month. And I'm picturing the disaster.

And now I pray, thank you for everything you've done. Thank you for this and that and everything I can come up with. And thank you for taking care of us in this.

I am so grateful that you sent, that you sent, past tense, the help we needed. And when I could see it and say it that way, things started flowing like they'd never flowed before. It was that simple.

And I know some of you are going to try it. Some of you are going to say, well, I've heard that before and whatever. You may not get it.

But if you will try it, you're going to see that these principles are based on laws that are dependable and constant, just like gravity. And we're better off if we understand them than if we don't. If we understand gravity, we can know how to work with it so not to get hurt.

And the same with these. So I just want to end with this promise, as it was with Gideon. It doesn't matter how large the problem is.

Exercising faith is not just a Sunday school answer anymore. It's an actionable key to solving all of life's challenges. Jesus said, I am come that they might have life, that they might have it more abundantly.

And it begins with rare faith, the kind of faith that causes things to happen. So there's so much more that I didn't have time to cover. If you want more help understanding how this works or support with that, rarefaith.org.

I know God wants us to discover His power through our faith and to exercise it so we can accomplish all that we were sent here to do as we prepare to receive the Lord and His return. And this is my testimony and prayer in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.