The Book of Mormon, in the words of Ezra Taft Benson, a former Mormon prophet, answers the great questions of the soul. (See Flooding the Earth with the Book of Mormon.) One question many people in the world wonder is whether or not God is real. The answer to this can be found in the Bible and the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is a book of scripture used by Mormons in companionship with the Bible. Mormon is a nickname sometimes used to describe members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The Book of Mormon is broken into smaller books, in the same way the Bible is. Each section was written by a specific person. The Book of Alma contains an account of Aaron, serving as a missionary, teaching the gospel to a king. This lesson helps to address the issue of whether or not God is real.
Aaron’s missionary companion, Ammon, was teaching the people who lived under the rule of Lamoni. While this occurred, Ammon went on to the land ruled by Lamoni’s father. There he had the opportunity to teach Lamoni’s father the gospel. However, this king needed to start first by learning that there was a God.
Aaron asked him if he believed in God. The king said he knew the Amalekites, who were under his rule, believed in a god and that he had allowed them to build places to worship that god. However, he decided that if Aaron said there was a God, he would believe because of the goodness Aaron and Ammon had shown him.
Aaron testified that there was a God. The king asked if this God was the Great Spirit that had led his ancestors from Jerusalem to this land. Aaron said that it was and that this Great Spirit (using a term that was comfortable and familiar to the king) was the Creator of all things. He continued to teach the king about God and Jesus Christ. He taught that God had made it possible for everyone to repent and to be saved through the atonement of His Son, Jesus Christ. He then invited the king to pray for his own testimony of God. The king did so:
O God, Aaron hath told me that there is a God; and if there is a God, and if thou art God, wilt thou make thyself known unto me, and I will give away all my sins to know thee, and that I may be raised from the dead, and be saved at the last day (Alma 22:18).
This is the pattern we are all encouraged to follow. We can all pray and ask God if He is real. Answers to prayers don’t always come instantly, but if we are asking with complete sincerity He will answer. We may need to demonstrate the strength of our desire first, however. Alma, another Book of Mormon prophet, assured us that merely wanting to have faith was enough to begin to get answers. However, we also need to learn the gospel and then put it to the test by living it. When we learn that God wants us to do a certain thing, we do so and monitor how it changes our lives or makes us feel. The more closely our lives mirror the life of Jesus Christ, the greater the change in our hearts will be.
When we pray, we most likely will not receive angels or a vision. Most often, we merely feel a peaceful feeling in our hearts—warmth, love, and safety. The more often we pray, the better we become at recognizing that this comes from God.
Knowing that God is real will have a profound impact on your life. It helps us to see our central identity. Of all the ways we identify ourselves, being a child of God should be the most important. Everything else pales in comparison. When we know who we are and how much God loves us, it changes everything. We begin to know that we matter in the world. We aren’t an accident. We came here by choice and we came with tremendous potential. The gospel of Jesus Christ can help us to discover that potential and help us to become the person God knows we can be.
Watch this video of a renowned scientist who explains why he believes in God: