As if our faith were already deep

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Saturday Morning Session of the October 2006 Conference.

A couple sentences in Elder David S. Baxter's talk this week caught my attention:

Faith is then nurtured as we allow ourselves to believe. Like all other virtues, faith is strengthened as we practice it, as we live and act as if our faith were already deep.

Something about "live and act as if our faith were already deep" appeals to me. It just seems like something that wouldn't be too hard to implement. It is a constant battle to fight off the voices saying, "This isn't real revelation; God wouldn't really speak to you; you aren't doing enough of your part to be worthy of His guidance." I am too intimately acquainted with my own faults and blindnesses not to, as a rational person, admit the possibility that they are blinding me about spiritual things too. But I think I could say, "Well, what would I think here if I were a woman of deep faith? How would a woman of deep faith respond to a prompting like this? What would a woman of deep faith assume in this situation?" 

I have already seen to some extent how saying, "I'll write this experience down and consider it as a prompting even if I'm not sure" has increased the frequency of my communication with God. This seems like an enlargement of that principle—deliberately letting deep faith color more of my actions, attitudes, and convictions even when my first reactions aren't as faithful as I'd like them to be!