All Things

I was reading through the accounts of Joseph Smith's first vision, and particularly studying the version written in his own hand and included in an autobiography in 1832.  

Here is what Joseph said he knew about God that helped give him the faith to take his questions to him in prayer.   

"For I looked upon the sun, the glorious luminary of the earth, and also the moon, rolling in their majesty through the heavens, and also the stars shining in their courses, and the earth also upon which I stood, and the beasts of the field, and the fowls of heaven, and the fish of the waters, and also man walking forth upon the face of the earth in majesty and in the strength of beauty, whose power and intelligence in governing the things which are so exceedingly great and marvelous, even in the likeness of him who created them.....My heart exclaimed, “All, all these bear testimony and bespeak an omnipotent and omnipresent power, a being who maketh laws and decreeth and bindeth all things in their bounds, who filleth eternity, who was and is and will be from all eternity to eternity."

He didn't wait for a visitation to believe in God, he looked at the evidence around him and believed.

It was because of that evidence that he knew he could approach Heavenly Father in prayer.  

John 1:3 testifies "All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made."

We can also look at the world around us and see the hand of divine creators.  In the beautiful.  And in the response to the devastating.  

And like Joseph did, each of us can ask in faith when we have questions.  The answers may not come as fast or in the way that we had hoped but they do come and in ways uniquely prepared for each of us to help us fulfill our own missions.