Growing up in the church, I heard many stories of people getting signs that helped them confirm their faith in the form of voices/warnings in their head, miracles, and of course visions in the case of Joseph Smith and others around the time of the founding of the church. Throughout my teenage years, I consistently asked God for one of those signs. I believed that with faith, even that of a mustard seed, I could get a big sign from God that would confirm to me that my faith in Jesus Christ and his church as real and valid. Or did I want it for some other reason? Looking back, I think consciously I wanted a sign for that reason but subconsciously, I just thought it would be cool; maybe something I could tell my friends and family about. Undoubtedly I think it would have helped my faith but the fact that I thought it was necessary for that faith is what made it so hard for me to finally get that personal confirmation of the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
This hope/expectation for a miraculous sign didn't just affect my testimony; it ended up ruining the quality of my prayers. I would pray for things like "if you give me a Corvette, I will know prayer works" pretending to myself that that would actually happen. I do not think that is impossible but it's an intrinsically flawed and selfish approach to prayer and faith. Not only would that minimize the amount of faith required to know for myself that the things I was unsure of were true, but this method required no sacrifice and offered much reward. God is good, but He often wants and expects us to be willing to make sacrifices for the greatest rewards available, not the least of which knowing which church was going to lead us to eternal life. I didn't deserve a Corvette and God knows I would probably think more about the Corvette than the confirmation of prayer that I had just received. As humans, we don't appreciate the value of something if it is just given to us for free or without work and effort.
This way of thinking lasted much too long and affected my testimony. I never disbelieved but I always felt jealous of people in church who would tell their stories of miracles and signs given them in moments of faith crises. Was I not good enough to get one of these miracles? Why would one person deserve a sign and not another? The sad truth of that question is that I had already experienced miracles, I just was unwilling to accept that that was my miracle because it wasn't like someone else's. How selfish of me. Years prior, my family and I were out looking for a Christmas tree as we do every year after Thanksgiving. My sister and brother and I went on our own to try and find that perfect tree. None of us really had a good sense of direction and didn't pay any attention to land marks that would help us get back to our point of origin. We searched for maybe 30 minutes with no luck and decided to head back. We thought we may simply have to turn around 180 degrees and we'd find our way but after a long time of walking, we didn't see our car, we didn't hear anyone responding to our shouts; we were lost. So my sister said we should get on our knees and pray. We found a road and knelt there and prayed that we could find our way. We then started walking down the road and just over the hill, we saw our family hauling in a tree and shouting for us. It was the the most immediate answer to a prayer that I had ever experienced, and even during my teenage years, I never forgot this experience, so why did I not see it as a miracle or a direct answer to my prayer?
I think back to the story I heard many times of a man shingling his roof. He did not have a harness on to secure him in case he slipped and was not well prepared for an incident. And that incident occurred; he slips and started to slide down the roof towards the edge where there was a roughly 15-20 foot drop to the ground. As he is slipping he says a quick prayer asking God to protect him (despite his lack of preparedness that would have prevented this situation in the first place.) Just as he says 'Amen' his belt catches a loose nail stopping his fall and saving him from a long fall that could have broken bones or even worse. He immediately says "never mind God, I caught a nail" completely ignorant to the fact that it was God who put the nail there. I personally like to believe his belt broke or the nail popped out at that moment but I know God is more forgiving and kind than I. This, in so many ways, was similar to my experience. I thought, "well, we were already on the road so even if we didn't stop and pray, we would have just found them down the road anyway" and similar excuses to discount the minor miracle we experienced. It wasn't until much later that I not only realized how significant this experience was, no matter how insignificant it may seem, but how little having an experience like that mattered. I am extremely grateful for it, but it didn't end up strengthening my faith and was not the reason I gained a testimony of the power of prayer or the gospel.
Unfortunately, I am among the crowd that didn't really gain a testimony of the gospel until I went on my mission. While in the MTC, a member of our Branch Presidency challenged us to read the Book of Mormon and then ask in sincere prayer if its words were true. I knew this was how we were supposed to gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon, I had heard dozens of stories about people doing this exact thing, but I realized that I had not done that myself. I was too busy trying to get God to give me big signs to help me confirm, or gain, my faith and testimony. My search for signs delayed the most powerful confirmation of truth I had ever had in my life and significantly slowed my progress as a member of the church. All it took was a sincere prayer and a reflection of my thoughts. It may not come in the same form to everyone, but in that moment, God knew that I wasn't trying to get anything out of it except a confirmation of truth. I wasn't looking for a story to tell my friends and family, I wasn't looking for material rewards, and I wasn't looking for a big sign. I was just looking for truth.
That would be a great ending to the story but the unfortunate truth is, I fell into some of the same habits in the years after I came home from my mission. I would ask God in prayer that if my pursuing of a woman I liked was the right path for me, to give me a sign, or, more often than not, ask for a specific sign like "have them send me a text message right now." We don't choose God's terms, and in the case of dating, God doesn't choose our significant other ("Mate Selection", Eternal Marriage Student Manual.) But this wasn't just limited to my dating life, I adopted this flawed approach to prayer and signs in various aspects of my life. I would ask for signs to help me find the right answers on tests that I hadn't studied enough for, I would ask for miracles that would help me financially, or to let me know if I should buy a new piece of technology I really wanted. Can God answer those prayers? Of course He can. Will he? Often, yes, but not often in the ways we want Him to.
The moral of the story here is of course, as the title suggests, that we don't need a sign from God to know what is true or what is right, but also, that we are prone to repeating our mistakes and falling back into bad habits. And I can't give you the antidote to this problem. I think the best thing we can do, in my experience, is to continually look for ways we can improve ourselves and be honest with ourselves when it comes to our faults and shortcomings. Just like repentance, you can't make any progress if you are unwilling to admit to the problem. It's so easy to follow the natural path life takes us, but the easiest things are hardly worth it. We must find the hard things in life to progress and we must be willing to make sacrifices in order to get what we find truly valuable, and I'm not talking about money. We always hear that "history repeats itself" and that is always true for those who hope for miracles to change the course of history, or for the matters of this article, your own life, and do not appreciate the value of humility and personal effort. We don't need signs, we need answers. Signs are welcomed but should not be expected.
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