Faith is what makes one seek what no one else is willing to seek and to find what no one else has found through doing what no one else will do.
Miracles are rare today, but God hasn’t changed. Miracles are just as workable today as they ever were. They are worked through the same mechanism they always were. They require the discovery of and practice of the underlying actions that generate them.
Miracles are rare today only because the people who are willing to pay the price required to work them are rare. Miracles work on faith, just as everything else that God does.
There is nothing magical about miracles. What makes the outcome more than ordinary is that the actor is willing to consider actions that others will not.
Obtaining outcomes that would otherwise not have come about can’t start from exerting effort in the same way anyone else would. The same path walked by others will always lead to the same outcomes everyone else receives.
People who turn to God in all things will have a radically different life than those who do not. This is not because they curry greater arbitrary favor from God than others. Instead, it is because they apply more effort in seeking direction from him, and more obedience in following it.
It was not the fact that Alma and his people prayed for his son that caused God to send an angel, but the fact that he prayed with greater faith than others might have:
And again, the angel said: Behold, the Lord hath heard the prayers of his people, and also the prayers of his servant, Alma, who is thy father; for he has prayed with much faith concerning thee that thou mightest be brought to the knowledge of the truth; therefore, for this purpose have I come to convince thee of the power and authority of God, that the prayers of his servants might be answered according to their faith. (Mosiah 27:14)
It was not the prayers of the sons of Mosiah that resulted in such great miracles, but the fact that they had sought for and were willing to do much more than their countrymen:
And now behold, Ammon, and Aaron, and Omner, and Himni, and their brethren did rejoice exceedingly, for the success which they had had among the Lamanites, seeing that the Lord had granted unto them according to their prayers, and that he had also verified his word unto them in every particular. (Alma 25:17)
Faith requires acting for as long as it takes. Most stories of faith in the scriptures spanned a long time—sometimes more than a single lifetime! If you want to obtain outcomes beyond what others have obtained, you must be willing to search or act for as long as it takes.
Where you are now matters in the path to get to where you want to go. Every journey starts with one step. Reason helps you accurately estimate where you are and what specific path can get you to the outcomes you desire. Faithful action requires taking one step at a time along that path and going back to reason by updating the path as you learn more through experience.
Part of faith is learning to freely desire things without limiting your dreams by what you think is possible. If you find you are much further away from where you thought you were—which is more likely the more valuable the outcome—you may decide that what you seek has a higher cost than what you are willing to pay.
If you limit what you consider to be possible to where you are right now, you will be extremely limited. This is why it is critical to divide this process into discrete steps. You have to be able to separate imagination of what is possible from thinking about what it would be worth and what it would take to get there.
Your distance from your goal is not relevant to your ability to obtain it. The possibility of your success relies only upon your ability to discover the path and your willingness to walk it.
It isn’t difficult to desire more than the outcomes obtained by those around you. People tend to live far below their potential in temporal and spiritual things alike. Very few have obtained even a fraction of what God plainly offers in terms of joy, love, and fulfillment. If the outcome you seek is so rare that you can’t find anyone who has obtained it, you will have to discover the path without human aid. Use the gift of revelation to apply to God directly for your answer. If you have an open mind, are doing all you can by keeping all his commandments and searching what resources you have available, and you believe he will tell you, he will:
`Do ye not remember the things which the Lord hath said?—If ye will not harden your hearts, and ask me in faith, believing that ye shall receive, with diligence in keeping my commandments, surely these things shall be made known unto you. (1 Nephi 15:11)`
What is possible is not so much defined by what we consider to be possible as it is by what we consider to be actionable. There is a path to every outcome, but whether we choose to seek, find, and follow that path is another question altogether.
Faith requires doing all things in your power. If you really desire something, you have to get it with all your ability. It is ok to desire something less than totally, but be intentional with what you set ahead of it, and also be aware that some outcomes will not take second place: if you don’t want them more than anything else, you will not be able to obtain them.
Relative difficulty compared to others is irrelevant. Whether it is harder or easier for you compared to another person is completely independent to whether it is possible for you .
Determining both worth and actionable steps has to involve dispassionate research and introspection. If you try to do that without the required effort or try to integrate that into the creative step of imagining what is possible, you will prematurely remove good and possible outcomes from the realm of possibilities.
Those with faith live a life filled with things that are difficult and unlikely. Their lives are an unbroken chain of long shots. In absolute terms, they have missed many more shots than normal people. But their success in life is not the ratio of wins to losses, which is much worse than normal people’s, but rather the sum of their wins. People with faith fail more, but they are the only ones who ever bother trying what other people consider impossible. Because they try, they discover that many impossible things are only difficult. In trying what others dismiss as impossible, and by pushing past where others quit, they encounter experiences and outcomes that others never see.