We can overcome our forgetfulness to extend the shelf life of faith until it encompasses our present and inspires our future. Photo by Nam Hoang (cropped), Unsplash.com.

Abstract: Many former members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints explain their loss of faith with the phrase “My shelf broke.” This is in reference to a well-known analogy by Camilla Kimball in which her shelf was where she kept the questions she could not yet answer, not as a way to avoid those questions but with faith that God would eventually answer them. Based on Sister Kimball’s analogy and the ninth article of faith, this paper suggests that there are actually three shelves rather than one, with a constant interplay between revelation past (shelf 1), revelation present (shelf 2) and revelation future (shelf 3). By intentionally remembering the past and thoughtfully engaging in the present, we can faithfully await revelation yet to come, fortifying our faith against the doubt that despairs of ever receiving answers to our questions.

Keywords: faith, revelation, testimony

They say that teaching is the lighting of a fire, not the filling of a bucket, but sometimes it’s not even the filling of a bucket but rather a sieve. Every teacher knows the pain of slaving over lesson plans only to have them slip through our students’ minds and memories, and this even when the famous quip about transferring information while bypassing brains[1] does not apply. Some lessons that originally felt life-changing end up being only week-, day-, or hour-changing, with students’ minds, like the chalkboard that earlier held their attention, being erased shortly after class. Evidently, passing through the veil wasn’t a onetime experience leaving premortality; we humans seem to repeat the process frequently here on earth.

In education, that reality leaves teachers questioning the longevity of their lessons. I’m still haunted by an experience shared by one of the preservice trainers who taught me how to teach. At the end of a lesson he had once observed, he walked to the well-used chalkboard still brimming with information and insight—and erased it. Gone were the well-phrased questions, the diagrams, and the discussion prompts. “Where is your lesson now?” he asked the young teacher. He then punctuated his point with an object lesson that proved memorable to me even in the retelling. Picking up some chalk dust from the tray beneath the chalkboard, he blew it into the air, letting its lesson slowly settle on the teacher’s mind. “There’s your lesson,” he said—erased, atomized, and scattered to the wind.

Ever since hearing that story, I erase the board (or turn off the projector) with a note of sadness, hoping my students’ memories are not erased quite as quickly after class. Matter and memory form a notoriously unstable compound, and while some experiences seem to miraculously escape our forgetfulness, too often time confirms President Henry B. Eyring’s cautionary lament “Great faith has a short shelf life.”[2]

Faith’s short shelf life is a reality we would be wise to guard against, whether in our roles as teachers, parents, or leaders or as students of the gospel ourselves. According to President Eyring, it’s one that requires persistence in the present, not merely reliance upon the past. Past experience, after all, might be pictured as a “great reservoir” in which faith can be “store[d] away against the times when [it] will be tested,”[3] but as President Eyring suggested, the level of water within it suffers from a frightening degree of mental evaporation. The Colorado River loses upwards of 10 percent of its annual flow due to the blistering desert sun,[4] and in a similar way (to draw from the parable of the sower), our seedling Saints will wither if they do not find ways to (1) draw on and (2) continually add to their stores of living water.[5] The better we train them to do these two things—draw upon spiritual experiences from the past and nurture newfound experiences in the present—the more faith they will have for the future, no matter the heat of the sun.

The Shelf

If a younger Henry B. Eyring had ever mentioned faith’s short shelf life at a family picnic, I would have loved to be a fly on the potato salad. After all, it was his father, Henry Eyring, who maintained his faith even as he climbed to the summit of the scientific community; it was his uncle Spencer W. Kimball who suggested remember as “the most important word” in the English language (specifically for its power in covenant keeping);[6] and it was his aunt Camilla Eyring Kimball who gave perhaps the most famous shelf-related quote in the history of the Church. As I imagine the conversation between them, I picture Aunt Camilla telling her nephew that great faith only has a short shelf life when it isn’t kept securely on the shelf.

Many of you already know the quote from Camilla Kimball I’m referring to. Meant to fortify faith, it is a familiar metaphor for many who are wrestling with spiritual questions and has become a favorite trope among former members of the Church, who couch it in an oft-repeated shorthand explanation of their departure: “My shelf broke.” Beyond abbreviated allusions, however, Sister Kimball’s statement is worth quoting in full:

I’ve always had an inquiring mind [an Eyring trait if ever there was one]. I’m not satisfied just to accept things. I like to follow through and study things out. I learned early to put aside those gospel questions that I couldn’t answer. I had a shelf of things I didn’t understand, but as I’ve grown older and studied and prayed and thought about each problem, one by one I’ve been able to better understand them. I still have some questions on that shelf, but I’ve come to understand so many other things in my life that I’m willing to bide my time for the rest of the answers.[7]

Ironically, some broken-shelf former believers dismiss the quote they use for self-description as naivete on Sister Kimball’s part, a willful avoidance of spiritual or intellectual difficulties that is timid at best and servile at worst. They imply (or openly accuse) erstwhile believers of being fearfully close-minded or blindly dogmatic, suggesting that Sister Kimball was the standard bearer—or shelf builder—for people who need to be spiritually coddled and intellectually anesthetized, protected by platitudes and cocooned in confirmation bias. They see the shelf as walling people off from realities they can’t handle, taking hard questions and locking them behind bulletproof glass—preferably in a darkened corner of a long-forgotten room, a forbidden wing of an otherwise sunlit, baby-proofed, temperature-controlled dwelling place, thickly insulated from the discomfort of questions one is unable to answer.

But Camilla Kimball was no ostrich, and she never put her head in the sand. Even her prophet-husband was “never . . . quite able to understand why I want to question and delve into things the way I do,” she admitted, but delving was in her DNA. As Lavina Fielding Anderson said, Sister Kimball possessed a “quietness” that was “the result of discipline and serenity, not passivity and indifference.” She was a deep thinker born into a family of deep thinkers, a child with “an insatiable appetite” for knowledge who “read everything” she could get her hands on. Her family had a remarkable “hospitality toward searching and studying,” and it was in these endeavors that she stayed anxiously engaged. She remembered her father’s calm in the face of her youthful questions, never “overreact[ing]” or “mak[ing her] feel uncomfortable” for asking them, and that patient, unruffled, open-minded approach became “the basis [she] operated on ever since.” That modus operandi meant remaining open to everything, weighing new ideas against established truths, and having the poise to be patient throughout the process. “I may not understand [something] fully,” she admitted, “but I can have faith that eventually I will if I keep working.” A beautiful blend of “insatiable mind” and “valiant spirit,” Camilla Kimball was a “lady of constant learning” who exemplified the courage to maintain a “shelf” full of questions and the faith to not let that shelf overwhelm her.[8]

What kept Sister Kimball’s shelf from becoming overwhelming is the fact that she never let it grow stagnant. Recall her approach to its contents. This was not a static collection of untouchable topics; rather, it was a place where she stored questions temporarily, knowing she couldn’t put life on pause until every answer became clear. As Elder Neil L. Andersen has taught, though she “didn’t know everything,” she “knew enough” to move forward, maintaining faith that eventually she would know even more.[9] And that increased understanding did, in fact, come. She wasn’t ignoring those “shelf” issues; she was “stud[ying] and pray[ing] and th[inking] about” each one—“each problem” as she unapologetically called them (emphasis my own)—and that combination of diligence and patience paid off. With the passage of time and the increase of understanding, she was able to reexamine objects on her shelf and ultimately remove them, transferring them from a holding place of ignorance and confusion to a more permanent place of understanding and conviction. Other questions yet remained—thus the need to maintain the shelf—but with a history of engagement with its ever-changing contents, she was “willing to bide [her] time,” confident that “the rest of the answers” would eventually come.

This is an essential part of the process of learning “even by study and also by faith” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:118). Study provides the needed diligence, and faith ensures the necessary patience. As the Lord explained earlier in the same revelation, “Sanctify yourselves that your minds become single to God, and the days will come that you shall see him; for he will unveil his face unto you.” The fulfillment of that promise lies somewhere in the future, but our choice to engage in that process can define our present, which will bring with it the assurance that we can trust the timing of God’s engagement as well, knowing “it shall be in his own time, and in his own way, and according to his own will” (verse 68). This contentment to trust the Lord’s timing is implied in the revelation’s previous verse as well. “And if your eye be single to my glory, your whole bodies shall be filled with light”—nothing left to wonder about on Sister Kimball’s iconic shelf, since “that body which is filled with light comprehendeth all things” (verse 67), including the previously incomprehensible. Understanding thus runs parallel to illumination: light is what allows us to see, and we “see” all things just as quickly as we obtain the “light” by which to see them. This light “groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day” for anyone who “receiveth light” and “continueth in God” (Doctrine and Covenants 50:24), thereby allowing the process to continue.

The Three Shelves

Recognizing the gradual nature of illumination and the temporary nature of a question’s inclusion on the shelf is key to what follows. This section first materialized as an insight that came to me over a decade ago in one of those “open your mouth” moments when the Lord fills our minds with insight (“light”) that originally was not our own. I was in the middle of a question and answer session with the members of a Protestant congregation in Nashville, Tennessee, when one woman asked pointedly about our view of the apostasy and what that meant for her as a nonmember of the supposedly “one true church.” I initially responded the way I had years earlier as a missionary—other churches are not false, they are simply incomplete—but the look on her face told me that the second word was no better than the first. My mouth was then filled with something that at first felt like my foot. “Yes, your church is incomplete,” I repeated calmly, followed by a statement that to me had been unthinkable till then: “And so is mine.” What? My mind raced to keep up with my mouth. This is the “fulness of the gospel,” I thought, the “true and living church.” What do you—I—mean it’s incomplete?

The answer came flooding back from my Primary days, when we memorized the Articles of Faith in hopes of being permitted to graduate to the youth programs. And in that moment, the ninth one became my favorite (a position it has held ever since, with twelve others tied for a very close second). “We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.” I finally perceived that the third declaration was also an honest admission: some truths are not yet known, precisely because they have not yet been made known. More surprisingly, these things are not mere points of trivia but are “great and important” truths without which the kingdom of God is not fully complete (thus the ongoing restoration of which President Russell M. Nelson has spoken).[10] As I explained to that roomful of people (myself included!), our faith is an incomplete one as well, one that will require continuing revelation to finish.

I felt a kinship with those fellow Christians in that moment, all of us limited by the relative partialities in our respective quests for truth. The main difference, I suggested with newfound humility, is that Latter-day Saints believe in a restoration of the same conduit through which God revealed his truths throughout the scriptural past: prophets and apostles whose work of “perfecting . . . the saints” will not be finished “till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:11–13). The “fulness of the gospel” is thus only a means; the goal remains “the fulness of Christ,” and I, for one, am still far from reaching that fulness.

My conversation partners that day weren’t completely satisfied, but by recognizing and admitting our own incompleteness I felt I was closer to the truth than I had been before. That day it became clear to me that revelation exists in three different temporalities: “all that God has revealed” lies in the past; “all that He does now reveal” populates the present; and the fact “that He will yet reveal” assures us of ongoing revelation yet to come. And with that I realized that—apologies to Sister Kimball—there is not one shelf but three: “revelation past,” “revelation present,” and “revelation future.” Camilla’s shelf is the third and topmost one.

With that recognition, a host of realizations followed. Most people label their shelf “questions I can’t answer,” or worse, “questions that will never be answered.” That, in fact, is primarily what causes one’s shelf to break, as so many former believers can attest. Tired of what they consider trite testimonies and evasive nonanswers, questions take on a sense of permanence for them that Sister Kimball’s never did for her. In that state of mind, over time their questions become concerns, concerns become doubts, and doubts lead to discouragement, disillusionment, and too often, departure. Uncertainties keep piling up, as more and more issues are added to the shelf without any being removed. The shelf starts to sag under the weight of unanswered questions. Devastated by the prospect of an ever-increasing inventory, they watch resignedly as their shelf collapses, leaving a fractured faith lying shattered on the floor.

This tragic scenario is a result of the kind of stagnation mentioned briefly in our discussion of Camilla Kimball’s shelf. Here that concept deserves greater attention. The shelf sags through the process of accretion without elimination—all addition and no subtraction—which occurs when nothing is satisfyingly removed. Whereas question marks are heavy, exclamation points are incredibly light—in both senses of the word! Thus, the key is to keep in mind the process by which questions are answered—and the fact that the process has worked before—thereby maintaining faith that this process will still serve us in the days ahead. In short, evidence from the past and engagement in the present reassure us concerning the future. Or, to return to the analogy of the three shelves, having a well-stocked first shelf and an engaging second shelf ensures that the third shelf will not collapse under a hopeless and unyielding weight.

These other shelves, in fact, are where Sister Kimball would have placed her questions—now answers—once they came off the shelf where she stored temporarily what she did not yet understand. To be more precise, her efforts to “study and pray and think” were an attempt to move things from shelf 3 to shelf 2, an open invitation for God to move future revelation into an active present. At times, these efforts resulted in moving them back to shelf 3, with the humility to wait on God’s promises, process, and pace. But this humility had come because at times, when human effort and divine will came together in revelatory synergy, other questions had been answered, allowing things on shelf 2 to be moved, gratefully and confidently, to shelf 1. This is the process whereby we can live within the principle of revelation: yesterday’s shelf-3 questions become today’s shelf-2 answers and tomorrow’s shelf-1 memories. And prizing those memories gives me confidence that the process will continue. What God revealed to me today (shelf 2) is carefully catalogued and treasured on shelf 1, which frees up space on shelf 2 for God to bring something down from shelf 3. He and I are constantly rearranging items, expanding our collection and fortifying my faith with every move.

For those familiar with Elder David A. Bednar’s address to religious educators in 2006, much of this should sound familiar. In that message, aptly titled “Seek Learning by Faith,” he recommended the same blend of diligence and patience exemplified by Sister Kimball. And he did so in a threefold direction, aiming various aspects of faith toward each of the three temporal orientations assigned to the three shelves. According to Elder Bednar, faith as “the assurance of things hoped for” is future facing; faith as “the principle of action” is situated in the present, and faith as “the evidence of things not seen” draws upon the past. He then explained that “assurance, action, and evidence influence each other in an ongoing process,” with faith’s three orientations being mutually reinforcing. “As we again turn and face forward toward an uncertain future, assurance leads to action and produces evidence, which further increases assurance. Our confidence waxes stronger, line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little.”[11]

Seen in this way, exercising faith is largely a matter of momentum, as described in Newton’s first law of motion. Inspired by moving spiritual experiences in the past, faithful disciples remain “in motion” in the present and seek to “stay in motion” as they pursue additional light and knowledge in the future. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true: if we are spiritually “at rest,” with no memory of past experiences moving us forward and no hope of future answers urging us on, then we tend to “stay at rest” in a momentum-less present. We forget God’s “marvelous works,” we stop “exercis[ing] faith and diligence,” and we “d[o] not progress in [our] journey” (Alma 37:41), which is spiritually dangerous. As Apostle and amateur kayaker Dale G. Renlund learned from sad experience, we tend to capsize “when we slow down and especially when we stop.”[12] Or, as President Nelson taught, “We have never needed positive spiritual momentum more than we do now, to counteract the speed with which evil and the darker signs of the times are intensifying.”[13] Thankfully, the memory of revelation past and the hope of revelation future can overcome inertia when we seem to be stalled in the present, pushing and pulling us forward from their respective positions in time.

Consider what the Savior said when he recognized that the Nephites’ intellectual momentum had slowed to a halt after an unexpectedly long (albeit glorious) first day of learning. I often ask my students to imagine reading 3 Nephi 11–16 in one sitting without any prior exposure to the text. Add to that the incredible one-by-one experiences described in chapter 11—which would have taken hours—and you have all the ingredients for a spiritually exhausting and overwhelming day, the kind that Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon had when experiencing the visions recorded in Doctrine and Covenants 76, which left Sidney completely drained, being “not as used to it” as Joseph was.[14]

Being “not as used to it” ourselves, my students and I agree that the Savior’s first words are accurate, as he says of each of us, “I perceive that ye are weak, that ye cannot understand all my words which I am commanded of the Father to speak unto you at this time” (3 Nephi 17:2). In this instance, it’s as if the Father moved so much from shelf 3 to shelf 2 that it was that second shelf that seemed to be buckling. Unprepared to understand it all, the Nephites were left to transfer the unexpected weight back to the third shelf, which seems to occupy almost endless wall space and where we tend to have the luxury of taking our time. Honoring that desire and taking compassion on their inadequacy, the Lord then gave them a five-step approach when dealing with this kind of inspiration overload. First, “go ye unto your homes”—it’s OK to move away from the firehose to swallow what’s now in your mouth. Second, “ponder upon the things which I have said”—failure to understand everything immediately is not proof of a slow student, but of a rich and multilayered lesson. Third, “ask of the Father, in my name, that ye may understand”—the best lessons require heavenly help, not independence from divine instruction. Fourth, “prepare your minds for the morrow”—today’s lesson came without advance notice, but tomorrow they could come to class prepared. After all, fifth, “I come unto you again”—education is an ongoing process; you can’t squeeze a semester into a single day.

Like the spiral of faith that Elder Bednar described, this five-step approach to greater understanding is also progressive, repetitive, and iterative. Pause, ponder, pray, prepare, and persist, with each round of resulting revelation building on the previous ones. This is “line upon line” living; this is “precept upon precept” eternal progression. And like the three shelves we are coming to recognize, there is a past, present, and future orientation to this patient, persistent approach. First, recognize that sometimes, especially when we’re feeling emotionally flooded and intellectually overwhelmed, continuing to rush forward only increases our anxiety. This is an example of running faster than we have strength (see Mosiah 4:27; Doctrine and Covenants 10:4) and demanding that the Lord work according to our timetable. Instead, stop and gather your thoughts. Close your eyes, center yourself, and let the waves of negative emotion crash overhead and roll right past you—there will be plenty of air once you resurface.

Newly grounded—however long that takes—face your three shelves with renewed faith. Taking stock of shelf 1, “ponder upon the things which [the Lord has] said” to you already; review the experiences you’ve had and the lessons you’ve learned. With the confidence that comes of that recollection, “ask of the Father . . . that ye may understand” what to this point has been difficult, and then watch insights appear on shelf 2 at a more sustainable pace. Thus “renewed in the spirit of your mind” (Ephesians 4:23), you can then “prepare your minds for the morrow,” knowing that ongoing instruction will be meted out mercifully and intermittently. With plenty of things past to remember and things present to consider, there is no rush in waiting for our instruction’s next installment. God can “come unto [us] again” in his own time and his own way. Encouraged by our past and sustainably engaged in our present, our future no longer overwhelms us. During trials of faith we can “let patience have her perfect work” (James 1:4).

Lost Momentum and Broken Shelves

We have seen the three shelves in a positive example from 3 Nephi; now let us turn to a negative example in the same book of scripture. This one helps us see the process described earlier whereby a top shelf breaks, not having strong lower shelves to support it.

The scene unfolds in 3 Nephi 2, one chapter after the Nephites experienced an unmistakable (and one would think unforgettable) sign in the heavens. A day, night, and day had passed without intervening darkness, fulfilling Samuel the Lamanite’s prophecy that thereby they would know that the Son of God had been born in the flesh. Believers had staked their lives on this prophecy, “watch[ing] steadfastly” for its future fulfillment (3 Nephi 1:8), even as they faced opposition in the present and suffered the disappearance of prophets from their recent past (the very ones who had been there when the prophecy was given). Mercifully, Samuel’s prophecy went from shelf 3 to shelf 2 just in time, but that forced a scrambling among the unbelievers, who went from obstinate disbelief to absolute knowledge without passing through faith along the way. Even willful ignorance was no longer within their reach as “they began to know that the Son of God must shortly appear” (3 Nephi 1:17; emphasis added).

All that was left them was spin control, blatant dishonesty about what the sign was meant to signify. So “from this time forth there began to be lyings sent forth among the people, by Satan, to harden their hearts, to the intent that they might not believe in those signs and wonders which they had seen” (3 Nephi 1:22). Though largely unsuccessful at first, it is ironic that the same archdeceiver who pushes skeptics toward sign seeking was now trying to convince people that seeing is not believing, or at least that it shouldn’t be.

Satan’s real success came a few years later, as more and more dissenters began defecting to the Gadianton robbers, despite what they knew of the miraculous sign. Somehow, by the time chapter 2 opens, “the people began to forget those signs and wonders which they had heard” only a few years earlier (3 Nephi 2:1). Placed atop our shelves, we thus see a shelf 1 devoid of the miracles that should have been enthroned there, or collecting dust until those miracles faded from sight. At the same time, the people “began to be less and less astonished at a sign or a wonder from heaven,” and why wouldn’t they be, since explaining away the miraculous had become their way of dealing with the inconvenient memories beneath the cobwebs on shelf 1.

Here we see the relationship between revelation past and revelation present. By discrediting the contents of shelf 1—“imagining up some vain thing in their hearts, that it was wrought by men and by the power of the devil” (verse 2)—these skeptics were able to discard the contents of shelf 2, keeping it empty except for the moment of a sign’s first appearance. God kept placing wonders on shelf 2, but the people ignored them or quickly explained them away, tossing them into the dustbin better known as shelf 1. Doubt flowed in the reverse direction as well: “They began to be hard in their hearts, and blind in their minds” (a present problem), and thus “began to disbelieve all which they had heard and seen” (a denial of the past) (verse 1). In either order, a willfully forgotten past and an intentionally ignorant present misinform one other, making the temporalities of doubt as mutually reinforcing as those of faith.

This troubling reality holds true when shelf 3 next comes into play. As “the people began to wax strong in wickedness and abominations,” unmoored from past experience or present conviction, “they did not believe that there should be any more signs or wonders given” (verse 3). Their third shelf, that is, remained frozen in time, locked up in a way that, ironically, mirrors what skeptics accuse Sister Kimball of doing with her shelf. I say ironically because whereas they imply (incorrectly) that Sister Kimball refused to face her questions, these Nephite dissenters refused to face their answers. Instead, they muzzled God, denied the possibility of revelation, and misused all their shelves for fear that God might rearrange their contents.

Remember, the contents of all three shelves must always be open to rotation, carefully curated by a God who must be allowed and even expected to move things around, taking down questions from shelf 3 or even pulling up old answers from shelf 1 whenever additional study on shelf 2 is in order. It is by gratefully cataloging shelf 1 and humbly “marveling,” “meditat[ing],” and “musing” over shelf 2 that we prove to God that we are ready for shelf-3 revelations. Case in point: the three m words just mentioned were all used by Joseph Smith to describe his experience with the angel Moroni (see Joseph Smith—History 1:44). By treasuring what he was then being given (shelf 2), he showed that he was ready to receive more (shelf 3). And what gave him the “full confidence” to pray for a shelf-3 “manifestation”? The fact that he had “previously had one” (verse 29), which he kept prominently displayed on his internal shelf 1.

But back to our negative example. As exemplified by the skeptics and dissenters, how we view shelf 3 depends on what we do with shelf 1 and shelf 2, an important distinction since moving contents down from the top shelf is largely out of our control, while curating the bottom two shelves is within the scope of our agency. The choice boils down to a matter of “framing.” We can either frame (or label) the contents of that high, unreachable shelf as “revelations yet to come” (the perspective of faith) or we can brand it “questions that will never be answered” (the perspective of doubt). We then approach the other two shelves in a way that assumes (and then tends to justify) one label or the other. If we perceive God as a Father who delights to speak to his children, then we will patiently wait for revelation with joyful anticipation. In the meantime, we will treasure revelation past and rejoice in revelation present—the sources of our future-facing reassurance. On the other hand, if we have decided that the heavens are closed (or worse, empty or nonexistent), this becomes in many cases a self-fulfilling prophecy (ironic for those who deny prophetic gifts). With the premise predetermining the conclusion, revelation past must be discredited and revelation present must be discarded or denied, since having anything on shelf 1 or shelf 2 would prove that God has, does, and therefore will yet, speak.

Moving up the shelves instead of down them, the same dichotomy holds true. If I intentionally remember revelation past and actively engage with revelation present, of course I will perceive shelf 3 as containing “revelations yet to come.” But if the items on shelf 1 are covered in cobwebs and shelf 2 is completely bare, then no wonder shelf 3 looks like a collection of “questions that will never be answered.” Why would God send answers in the future when he doesn’t answer in the present and has never answered in the past?

Sadly, framing shelf 3 in this way is even possible for former believers who once had a collection of beautiful keepsakes on shelf 1; it only takes similar reframing on that past-facing shelf. Recall what the skeptics had done in 3 Nephi 2. Instead of crediting God with a miracle (which would have been an admission of faith), they reframed the heavenly sign as mere deception, declaring “that it was wrought by men and by the power of the devil” (3 Nephi 2:2). Thus reinterpreted, the event could be dismissed as manmade manipulation or diabolical deceit. In a similar way, when we wonder how once-faithful Saints could possibly forget their spiritual experiences, it’s often a matter of reframing as much as forgetting (though that is possible too). Even when we try to remind them of testimonies borne or miracles witnessed, their reframing diminishes divinity downward, reconfiguring spiritual experiences as merely psychological ones instead. To rephrase the verse just quoted, they “imagin[e] up some [reductive explanation] in their hearts, that it was wrought by [confirmation bias] and by the power of [elevated emotion].” In this way a Spirit-denying skepticism “get[s] possession of the hearts of the [formerly faithful], insomuch that [it] blind[s] their eyes and lead[s] them away to believe that the [possibility of divine revelation or spiritual confirmation] is a foolish and a vain thing.”

I pray the preceding paragraph doesn’t come across as combative or dismissive, especially to anyone weighed down by a sagging shelf 3. My hope is simply to clarify these two opposing worldviews to identify the incompatible mental universes in which they operate. One allows for a vertical divine dimension and the other limits itself to a horizontal human plane. Having counseled hundreds of people one-on-one who are experiencing some type of faith crisis, my experience has shown me that the way they view the third shelf, and the ways they engage with the other two, largely determine whether they will be open to receive the “great and important things” that God “will yet reveal” unto them, if only they would let him. Furthermore, for those who find themselves reframing things according to the “shelves of doubt” described in 3 Nephi 2, the tendency to psychologize spiritual experiences—to discredit, discard, and dismiss—puts them in a space that makes them almost unreachable to the Holy Spirit, precisely because they so quickly explain it away.

In short, it’s a question of whether we approach our shelves in faith or in doubt—not faith or doubt in the outcome, which might feel like circular reasoning, but faith or doubt in the process, which is simply the willingness to try. This is Alma’s experiment on the word, which avoids making faith a foregone conclusion but does require its allowance as an underlying premise. This is the distinction Alma suggests when he says that God “desireth, in the first place, that ye should believe” (Alma 32:22)—again, not a preliminary belief in the conclusion but rather an initial acceptance of the process by which a real conclusion can be reached. Forcing the conclusion is no experiment at all; trusting the process is believing that the experiment is worth performing and will ultimately bear fruit.

No wonder Alma urges those who are struggling with doubt to at least “give place for a portion of [his] words,” to “give place, that a seed may be planted” (Alma 32:27–28; emphasis added). He’s merely asking that we carve out space for things spiritual, that we suspend disbelief just long enough to give God a little room to reveal himself. In terms of the three shelves, this is the attitude that allows for divine rearrangement, that refuses to see questions as permanent fixtures on an unreachable shelf 3. Alma wasn’t demanding that people blindly accept his testimony, but he was acknowledging the fact that they had to at least entertain the possibility of an epistemology—or way of knowing—that allowed for a witness of the Spirit. If instead they “resist[ed] the Spirit of the Lord” by denying the possibility of his participation, then the experiment was over before it began. Rather than granting the seed a chance to grow, if they “cast it out by [their] unbelief” in advance (verse 28), then the results of this experiment would be nullified, precisely because there had been no experiment in the first place. Framing shelf 3 as “questions that will never be answered” is a refusal to engage in the experiment. Perceiving our questions as “revelations yet to come” is a more open-minded approach, one that allows our “understanding” to be “enlighten[ed]” (verse 28) as we experiment with questions in the laboratory of life.

The Three Shelves in Scripture

Once we understand the three “shelves” and the ways they are interrelated, we notice them frequently in scripture. What we discovered in 3 Nephi 17:2–3 and 3 Nephi 2:1–3 are but two examples; many others are hiding in plain sight. As we consider together a few noteworthy passages, keep your eye out for others as you study.

One of the most frequently invoked (but often unnoticed) is Moroni’s famous promise in Moroni 10:3–5. As a young seminary student myself, I memorized verses 4 and 5 as a Scripture Mastery passage, but verse 3 is essential in this process because it keeps the past firmly in view while we ask in the present for an answer yet to come. Moroni’s preliminary invitation to “remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things” (verse 3) clearly rests on shelf 1. There we review the acts of God throughout time—from ancient history to personal history and everything in between—looking for evidence of his mercy in his dealings with his children. If done correctly, that sweeping review should fill every inch of shelf 1, putting us in the proper mindset to engage with the shelf-2 invitation to “ponder it [God’s mercy] in [our] hearts” (verse 3) until we are ready to “ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true” (verse 4). If we have spent sufficient time marveling over God’s mercies in the past, we will likely have come to the preliminary conclusion that God is indeed defined by his mercy—the proving of which is one of the Book of Mormon’s primary purposes[15]—and we can then “ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ” for a confirmation of that hypothesis. This prayer, of course, is offered in the present, but it is done believing that God “will manifest the truth of it unto [us], by the power of the Holy Ghost,” which no doubt qualifies as a “great and important” revelation yet to come. In fact, inspired by a merciful past and engaged in a faith-filled present, this future-facing faith becomes all-encompassing, as “by the power of the Holy Ghost [we] may know the truth of all things” (verse 5).

Putting a rekindled past into service to an engaged present not only prepares us for a future of ongoing answers, it protects us from a future of oppositional attacks. Consider Jacob’s response to the antichrist Sherem. Despite Sherem’s best efforts to “shake [him] from the faith,” Jacob held firm to the fact that he “truly had seen angels, and they had ministered unto [him].” His well-stocked first shelf kept him grounded, and it remained inseparably linked to a second shelf in which he was actively engaged, one in which Jacob “heard the voice of the Lord speaking unto [him] in very word, from time to time” (Jacob 7:5). The phrase “from time to time” attests to the present-tense persistence of revelation in Jacob’s life, new experiences appearing on shelf 2 whenever he moved memories down to shelf 1. And, because of Jacob’s approach to his first and second shelves, what could he confidently say of his third? Despite not knowing everything (a fact Jacob openly admits in Jacob 4:8), no matter what flattering words and devilish deceptions Sherem attempted, Jacob’s faith in a God of revelation “could not be shaken” (Jacob 7:5). He had already come to recognize that the right past and present can prepare us to face any future. As he testified earlier, “We search the prophets [writings preserved on shelf 1], and we have many revelations [experiences appearing intermittently on shelf 2] and the spirit of prophecy [an eye to shelf 3]; and having all these witnesses [arrayed across all three shelves] we obtain a hope, and our faith becometh unshaken” (Jacob 4:6). This is the way to live in ongoing revelation; “wherefore, brethren, despise not the revelations of God” (verse 8).

Temptation is one thing; hesitation is another. Sometimes our spiritual experiences aren’t as obvious as those of Jacob, making our shelf-1 displays not quite as convincing as his were. But note the experience of Oliver Cowdery as described in Doctrine and Covenants 6. With enough faith to offer Joseph Smith his assistance, but still wondering if what he’d already felt was real, Oliver asked for a reconfirmation of the truth. And in response, the Lord introduced this eventual “Second Elder” to a way of overcoming his tendency to second-guess himself. “Thou hast inquired of me, and behold, as often as thou hast inquired thou hast received instruction of my Spirit,” the Lord reminded him, drawing his attention back to their shared past. “Behold, thou knowest that thou hast inquired of me and I did enlighten thy mind” (Doctrine and Covenants 6:14–15). “Thou knowest” is notable here, for it suggests a God who holds his children accountable to the knowledge he has given them. Joseph himself understood this when he refused to deny the First Vision, knowing that he “knew it,” and more dramatically, knowing “that God knew it” too (Joseph Smith—History 1:25). Thus, both Joseph and Oliver had had experiences that reflected the later words of Elder Neal A. Maxwell when recalling one of his “spiritually defining moments”: “I knew that God knew that I knew.”[16] That is the accountability inherent in shelf 1.

But turning to shelf 2, Oliver was in a present struggle, despite feeling past peace. And mercifully, the Lord responded in the same distressing present in which Oliver found himself. Imagine the reassurance Oliver would have felt when recording these words as uttered by the Prophet Joseph: “And now [a clear nod to shelf 2] I tell thee these things that thou mayest know that thou hast been enlightened by the Spirit of truth [a confirmation of shelf 1]” (verse 15). Only God and Oliver knew about the past experience that had brought Oliver there, and the Lord reminded him of that past right then in the present (see verse 16). The Lord then reiterated, “I tell thee these things as a witness unto thee—that the words or the work which thou hast been writing are true” (verse 17). They are true today, just as they were true when you first wondered. And in case additional doubts were to creep into Oliver’s third shelf, the Lord commended a specific approach to his future: “Be patient; be sober; be temperate; have patience, faith, hope and charity” (verse 19). Patience, repeated twice in quick succession, would prepare Oliver for a future of ongoing affirmation. And “treasur[ing] up these words in [his] heart” (verse 20) would link this shelf-3 encouragement to the memories on shelf 1.

Furthermore, the Lord continued, “If you desire a further witness” in the future to take down from shelf 3, then rely on shelf 1 for that renewal. When in doubt, “cast your mind upon the night that you cried unto me in your heart, that you might know concerning the truth of these things” and again you will remember. “Did I not speak peace to your mind concerning the matter?” Future witness emerging from past experience—all reaffirmed in the present: “And now, behold, you have received a witness; for if I have told you things which no man knoweth have you not received a witness?” (verses 22–24). In essence, God was calling past Oliver to bear witness to any future Olivers that might come questioning. And if any present Oliver were to sufficiently bring past Oliver back to life, no doubts could possibly interfere with their future. Shelves 1 and 2 could keep shelf 3 from crashing down.

It is worth noting here that it is not only our own past experiences that can open our minds to present and future revelation. By breathing new life into the insights and experiences of others, we too can benefit from a past that wasn’t originally our own. The scriptures, for example, serve as the collective memory of God’s people, and can therefore enlarge the memory (see Alma 37:8) of future generations far beyond their own lived experience. They keep shelf-1 epiphanies “always before our eyes” (Mosiah 1:5), and these past truths, if sufficiently pondered in our present, will likewise open avenues for future revelation. Just ask Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon, or Joseph’s nephew, Joseph F. Smith, whose present ponderings on past revelation brought previously unknown visions into view (see Doctrine and Covenants 76:15–19; 138:1–11).

At this point, hopefully your mind is racing just like mine, thinking of other stories in scripture where the three shelves come into play, places where we are taught to (1) actively remember, (2) diligently study, and (3) patiently wait. If so, I will leave to you the task of identifying other passages that yoke the past to the present in pursuit of a glorious future, or to reverse the order, examples of those who had faith in the future because they were living by faith in the present, inspired by experiences when their faith was rewarded in the past.

By now, it has hopefully become clear that our attitude toward shelf 3—whether we see its contents as unanswerable questions or revelations yet to come—is largely determined by the way we approach the other two shelves. It is thus worth giving each of these shelves some individual attention, especially if we are to help our students approach them in a way that extends the shelf-life of their faith. Each shelf has its own inherent weakness—shelf 1, forgetfulness; shelf 2, apathy; and shelf 3, hopelessness—which means that each shelf requires a particular approach, a key verb that can keep their contents in active rotation. For shelf 1, our watchword is remember; for shelf 2, the key is to engage; and for shelf 3, our word is wait, but an active, anticipatory waiting that combines the relevant ratios of “patience and faith” (Doctrine and Covenants 21:5).

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland captured the essence of the three shelves when he taught, “In moments of fear or doubt or troubling times, hold the ground you have already won, even if that ground is limited. . . . When those moments come and issues surface, the resolution of which is not immediately forthcoming, hold fast to what you already know and stand strong until additional knowledge comes. . . . In this Church, what we know will always trump what we do not know.” Rephrased in the language of the shelves, Elder Holland is promising that a well-stocked, well-kept, well-remembered shelf 1 will always counterbalance the contents of shelf 3. Furthermore, since “an honest declaration of doubt” is not “a higher manifestation of moral courage than is an honest declaration of faith,” we realize that defiantly displaying the contents of shelf 3 (especially under a “questions that will never be answered” kind of label), is not more noble, honest, or courageous than humbly displaying the contents of shelf 1.[17] Questions are good things, powerful things when asked in faith, humility, and patience. But never let your question marks cancel out your exclamation points. Shelf 3 may at times seem to be free floating, but it will never fall off the wall if shelf 1 remains firmly fixed in the ground we have already won.

Being “free floating” or “firmly fixed” reminds me of an analogy I’ve explored with my students to promising effect. When discussing the three shelves with them—typically in places like 3 Nephi 2:1–3 or 17:2–3 or in a variety of other passages that hint at past, present, and future dimensions—once they see the importance of each shelf and the interrelatedness between them, I show them a picture of someone rock climbing and ask them to draw the appropriate parallels. The pictures I show always have the climber harnessed to a rope that is strung through a series of anchor bolts, but the rope is trailing beneath the climber, not above her. Thus, the climber is free-climbing, but doing so infinitely more safely than those who climb without any rope at all. “Notice each detail,” I direct my students, “the cliff and climber, the anchor bolts and rope. Where do you see the three shelves?”

Their answers are illuminating. Shelf 2 obviously represents the climber’s current position, with shelf 1 the cliff that is stretching out beneath them and shelf 3 encompassing all that lies ahead. The rope and anchor bolts connect the present to the past and give a measure of confidence as the climber reaches up for a handhold in an otherwise unknown future. It takes courage to ask questions and admit uncertainties; free-climbing is an exercise in faith. But, as Elder Holland taught, I reach for what I don’t know while being firmly connected to what I do know, driving additional anchor bolts into the rock whenever I gain new confirmation of what I earlier only hoped for in faith. As long as my previous anchor bolts hold and I stay securely clipped into each one, then I’m never in danger of falling far. I may slip when searching for understanding that still lies beyond my grasp, but if my prior spiritual experiences hold, I can safely continue the climb. The ascent is only perilous when, in my zeal to reach the top, I bring no rope and ignore each anchor, leaving me unconnected to the rock of my salvation. That would be a dangerous climb indeed.

Homework: Stocking Your Shelves

Whether or not we recognize it, we have been stocking and rearranging our spiritual shelves since birth—asking and learning, remembering and waiting—repeatedly and iteratively as we grow up in God. As Elder Andersen observed, “Through the years we take these important steps over and over again. We begin to see that ‘he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day’ (Doctrine and Covenants 50:24). Our questions and doubts are resolved or become less concerning to us. Our faith becomes simple and pure. We come to know what we already knew.”[18]

At home, that is my hope for my family, and in the classroom, that is my hope for my students. To help facilitate this process with them, I often give my students a homework assignment, offered either “by way of command” in my graded BYU classes or “by way of invitation” in seminary or institute (see Alma 5:62). It consists of creating their personal set of shelves. They can do this physically or electronically, with objects, pictures, or written words, but I ask them to prayerfully and carefully construct their shelves, lining them with their personal “revelations past,” their current “revelations present,” and their honestly hoped for “revelations yet to come.” The results are amazing.

Some students produce written records of their shelf-1 experiences, beautiful in their detail and powerful in their effect. They write of personal miracles, answered prayers, and life-changing moments. Others record principles they know to be true, attached to specific experiences when they received divine confirmation. Some draw pictures or create collages, each image encapsulating an experience that is sometimes too sacred to share in detail. I tell my students in advance that the power in this project will depend on how seriously they take it and how personal they make it, so if it ever becomes too personal to share, they don’t have to turn it in at all, and can simply report on the experience of creating it instead. As one student recently reported, “I completed this project, but felt like my responses were too personal to share. I felt a lot of peace as I reflected on each of these questions and learned a lot about myself through identifying my top spiritual experiences.”

On shelf 2, students record the subjects they are currently studying and the spiritual experiences they are having. They often bring up matters related to their Church callings, intellectual issues, personal struggles they are wrestling with, or topics we are tackling in class—evidence of engagement every teacher hopes to see! Some of these might also be too personal to share—issues to be shared with a bishop instead, or that are occurring between the student and her Father in Heaven alone.

Populating shelf 3 gives students the opportunity to be honest with themselves and with the Lord, identifying their questions, admitting their uncertainties, and expressing their faith. Sometimes they list controversial issues or thorny parts of history, giving me insight into ways I can help a student individually or alerting me to subjects worth discussing in class. It also helps students demystify their doubts by being willing to face them, not in unnerving isolation but rather in the context of other things that God has revealed or is currently making clear. As another student wrote of her experience constructing shelves, “I liked seeing how questions and faith go hand in hand. I can have all the questions in the world, but as long as my questions are holding hands with faith, I can embrace peace even when my questions aren’t answered. My questions are written in folders in my computer. I put check marks next to the ones that I have found answers to this semester, and it has been exciting for me to keep writing more and more questions because it helps me put more passion behind my scripture studies. I also have a list of experiences where I saw God’s hand or God answered my prayer. It is now one of my favorite documents. Thank you.”

Most impressive to me are those projects that are created as living documents, reflecting the changing nature of what is past, present, and future, and honoring God’s willingness to rearrange the contents of our shelves. One enterprising student organized his shelves on a task management app, which allows for movement once tasks are completed, or in this case, as items shift from one shelf to another. When he is ready to move on from a current study topic, he moves it from shelf 2 to shelf 1, and as future questions come to occupy his heart and mind, he moves them from shelf 3 to shelf 2. Another student created a beautiful personal website to encase his three shelves. As he wrote on its home page, just beneath a picture of the temple, “This log of revelation is inspired by . . . King Benjamin’s words in Mosiah 4:11–12. I intend to add to it often and to turn to it in times of heartache and temptation in order to remember the goodness of God and to have hope for the present and future.” Knowing this student, I have full confidence that he will. As the verses he cited attest, if we will “remember, and always retain in remembrance” the contents of shelf 1, if we will “call on the name of the Lord daily” for help with shelf 2, and if we will “stand steadfastly in the faith of that which is to come” down from shelf 3, then we will “always rejoice, and be filled with the love of God, . . . and [we] shall grow in the knowledge of the glory of him that created you, or in the knowledge of that which is just and true” (Mosiah 4:11–12).

I have been richly blessed by my students’ shelves, which inspire me to give ongoing attention to my own. The honesty expressed on their third shelf, the excitement evidenced in their second, and the gratitude brimming from their first, all evince seedling Saints who are poised to become lifelong disciples of Jesus Christ. Their shelves show remarkable depth and breadth, and the caretakers of those shelves are learning to trust the Lord as he rearranges their contents. By the end of the project, they have come to understand and agree with the wisdom in this statement from Elder Andersen: “Embrace your sacred memories. Believe them. Write them down. Share them with your family. Trust that they come to you from your Heavenly Father and His Beloved Son. Let them bring patience to your doubts and understanding to your difficulties. I promise you that as you willingly acknowledge and carefully treasure the spiritually defining events in your life, more and more will come to you.”[19]

Conclusion

God may dwell in one eternal now, with all things past, present, and future before his face, but we don’t, and that temporality adds complexity to our existence. Time ticks on and on—here too quickly, there too slowly—flying through good times and dragging through bad. Fruit ripens, bodies age, even rock erodes, as time, whether by days or decades, minutes or millennia, performs its inescapable task: to make things change.

In the classroom, the clock wields an almost unbending authority, with a teacher’s teaching time pouring through the hourglass and gospel discussions being limited by the number of grains of sand. At a larger scale, we battle the erosion of personal experience and lament the short shelf life of faith, largely because memory often has only a weak hold upon the past. However, we can fight our forgetfulness and extend the shelf life of faith until it encompasses our present and inspires our future. No shelf need break if we keep all three in working order.

Despite pressing questions and future unknowns, as we actively remember, diligently engage, and faithfully wait, the Lord will make all things known. Holding the past with gratitude and embracing the present with devotion, we can face the future with faith, knowing that “wonderful things are ahead.” As President Nelson has avowed: “In coming days, we will see the greatest manifestations of the Savior’s power that the world has ever seen. Between now and the time He returns ‘with power and great glory’ (Joseph Smith—Matthew 1:36), He will bestow countless privileges, blessings, and miracles upon the faithful.”[20] In joyful anticipation of the fulfillment of that promise, we await the “many great and important things” that God “will yet reveal” to us, knowing that the Lord will make excellent use of all the shelf space we can offer him.

Notes

[1] The quote is most often attributed incorrectly to Mark Twain and defines college as “a place where a professor’s lecture notes go straight to the students’ lecture notes, without passing through the brains of either.”

[2] Henry B. Eyring, “Spiritual Preparedness: Start Early and Be Steady,” general conference talk, October 2005, www.churchofjesuschrist.org.

[3] Eyring, “Spiritual Preparedness.”

[4] Evaporation rates are extremely difficult to determine for a water system as complex as that of the Colorado River, but most of its evaporation takes place within its massive reservoirs. For example, it is estimated that the amount of water that evaporates from Lake Mead and Lake Powell alone would be enough to meet the yearly needs of both Utah and Nevada. See https://coloradoriverscience.org/Reservoir_evaporation; see also Katja Friedrich et. al., “Reservoir Evaporation in the Western United States: Current Science, Challenges, and Future Needs,” American Meteorological Society, January 2018, 167–87.

[5] See Matthew 13:21; Mark 4:17; Luke 8:13. For more on this parable, including applications in teaching, see Jared M. Halverson, “Of Soils and Souls: The Parable of the Sower,” Religious Educator 9, no. 3 (2008): 31–48; https://rsc.byu.edu/vol-9-no-3-2008/soils-souls-parable-sower.

[6] Spencer W. Kimball, “Circles of Exaltation,” address to religious educators, Brigham Young University, June 28, 1968, 8.

[7] Lavina Fielding, “Camilla Kimball: Lady of Constant Learning,” Ensign, October 1975, 62.

[8] Fielding, “Camilla Kimball,” 61–63.

[9] Neil L. Andersen, “You Know Enough,” general conference talk, October 2008, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org.

[10] See “Latter-day Saint Prophet, Wife and Apostle Share Insights of Global Ministry,” October 30, 2018, newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org; LeGrand R. Curtis Jr., “The Ongoing Restoration,” Ensign, April 2020, www.churchofjesuschrist.org.

[11] David A. Bednar, “Seek Learning by Faith,” address to religious educators, February 3, 2006.

[12] Dale G. Renlund, “The Powerful, Virtuous Cycle of the Doctrine of Christ,” general conference talk, April 2024, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org.

[13] Russell M. Nelson, “The Power of Spiritual Momentum,” general conference talk, April 2022, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org.

[14] “Autobiography of Philo Dibble,” Doctrine and Covenants Central, https://doctrineandcovenantscentral.org/history/philo-dibble.

[15] See 1 Nephi 1:20, especially in relation to 1 Nephi 6:4 and the second paragraph of the title page.

[16] Neal A. Maxwell, “Becoming a Disciple,” Ensign, June 1996; www.churchofjesuschrist.org.

[17] Jeffrey R. Holland, “‘Lord, I Believe,’” general conference talk, April 2013, www.churchofjesuschrist.org; emphasis in original.

[18] Andersen, “You Know Enough.”

[19] Andersen, “Spiritually Defining Memories.”

[20] Russell M. Nelson, “Overcome the World and Find Rest,” general conference talk, October 2022, www.churchofjesuschrist.org.